Salutations; a Festschrift for Burton Watson

Edited by Jesse Glass and Philip Williams, this collection of essays, articles, and poems about Chinese and Japanese literature and culture celebrates the illustrious scholarly career of Burton Watson, whose range of excellent literary translations into English from Japanese and classical Chinese is second to none. Over half of the book’s seventeen chapters are articles about Chinese or Japanese literature and culture with full scholarly apparatus; the remainder are tributes to Watson in the form of poetry or informal essays.

Topics include analysis of Watson’s skills as a translator and practical critic; a cultural history of Chinese literati; masterpieces of the Ming essayist Zhang Dai; revisiting David Hawkes’ interpretations of Du Fu’s poetry; China’s earliest science fiction from the late Qing; reflections on cultural change by the early Yuan Confucianist Hao Jing; the multi-dimensional symbolism in Hagiwara Sakutarô’s poetry; the fictional portrayal of a self-sacrificing female Chinese Buddhist saint; key patterns of arboreal imagery in the 300 Tang Poems anthology; and Japanese linked verse across the centuries.

Featuring contributions by Victor Mair, Robert Hegel, Hiroaki Sato, William Nienhauser, Jonathan Chaves, Lucas Klein, Hoyt Tillman, Yenna Wu, Yoko Danno, Hua Li, Duncan Campbell, Stephen Addiss, Robert Epp, Timothy Clifford, Philip Rowland, Sam Hamill, and Gary Snyder.

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Qian Zhongshu’s Patchwork, translated by Duncan Campbell

Brill has published Qian Zhongshu’s 錢鍾書 Patchwork: Seven Essays on Art and Literature 七綴集, translated by Duncan Campbell.

Patchwork: Seven Essays on Art and Literature presents in English translation a number of essays written by the Chinese literary scholar and novelist Qian Zhongshu (1910-1998). One of the great minds of the twentieth century, Qian, with his characteristic erudition and wit, addresses here aspects of the classical literary and artistic traditions of China. Better known, as a scholar, for his magisterial Limited Views: Essays on Ideas & Letters (Guanzhui bian 管錐編) (1979-80) and, as a novelist, for his Fortress Besieged (Weicheng 圍城) (1947), these essays, first written during the period 1948-83 and much revised over the years, allow readers insight into Qian’s abiding concern with “striking connections” between disparate literary, historical, and intellectual traditions, ancient and modern, Chinese and Western.

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