The Shorter Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature - (Translations from the Asian Classics) Abridged by Victor Mair (Paperback)

About the Book

This shorter anthology retains the characteristics of the original in that it is arranged according to genre rather than chronology and interprets "literature" very broadly to include not just literary fiction, poetry, and drama, but folk and popular literature, lyrics and arias, elegies and rhapsodies, biographies, autobiographies and memoirs, letters, criticism and theory, and travelogues and jokes. It also contains fresh translations by newer voices in the field.

Book Synopsis

With its fresh translations by newer voices in the field, its broad scope, and its flowing style, this anthology places the immense riches of Chinese literature within easy reach. Ranging from the beginnings to 1919, this abridged version of The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature retains all the characteristics of the original. In putting together these selections Victor H. Mair interprets "literature" very broadly to include not just literary fiction, poetry, and drama, but folk and popular literature, lyrics and arias, elegies and rhapsodies, biographies, autobiographies and memoirs, letters, criticism and theory, and travelogues and jokes.

Review Quotes

A lifetime spent reading Chinese literature has produced this enormous, enthralling, canon-exploding book.... Often, the funniest and liveliest entries are translated by the editor himself, who has an uncanny ability to caputre puns and rhymes even in English translation.... Wonderful.-- "Revue Bibliographique de Sinologie"

Innovative, talented, lively and splendidly readable.-- "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society"

The list of translators reads like a Who's Who of Western sinology. This is a book one can open at any page and immediately be drawn in by its great and appealing content. It is at once a reference book, with examples drawn from the huge corpus of Chinese literature, and a book which guarantees superb reading pleasure.-- "New Asia Review"

About the Author

Victor H. Mair is professor of Chinese languages and literature in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Among his many publications are Tun-huang Popular Narratives; Painting and Performance: Chinese Picture Recitation and Its Indian Genesis; T'ang Transformation Texts: A Study of the Buddhist Contribution to the Rise of Vernacular Fiction and Drama in China; Tao Te Ching: The Classic Book of Integrity and the Way; and (with J. P. Mallory) The Tarim Mummies.