{"id":3946,"date":"2017-12-06T09:00:06","date_gmt":"2017-12-06T01:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3946"},"modified":"2017-12-05T21:59:11","modified_gmt":"2017-12-05T13:59:11","slug":"asian-american-writers-workshop-recommends-asian-literature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3946","title":{"rendered":"Asian American Writers’ Workshop recommends Asian Literature"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \"\"<\/a><\/span>The Asian American Writers’ Workshop<\/a> has collected recommendations from noted American writers and publishers for what to read of Asian literature. And unsurprisingly, Chinese poets and poetry are well-represented.<\/p>\n

Barbara Epler, president of New Directions publishing, recommends Li Shangyin and Bei Dao, among others. She writes:<\/p>\n

I am torn between favorites\u2014Qian Zhongshu\u2019s Fortress Besieged<\/em>, Tanizaki\u2019s The Maids<\/em>, Li Shangyin\u2019s Derangement of My Contemporaries<\/em>, Takashi Hiraide\u2019s The Guest Cat<\/em>, Eka Kurniawan\u2019s Beauty is a Wound<\/em>, Sei Shonagon\u2019s The Pillow Book<\/em>\u2014but finally want to choose Bei Dao\u2019s new memoir, City Gate, Open Up<\/em>. It\u2019s a remarkably moving autobiography of this great poet, beautifully translated by Jeffrey Yang: a testament to stubbornness and endurance, City Gate, Open Up<\/em> is a love letter to the Beijing of his childhood and to his family.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And Eliot Weinberger gives an even fuller syllabus, explaining, “‘Favorite Asian book’ is as impossible as ‘favorite European book’ or ‘favorite song.’ Sorry not to play by the rules of this game–and instead rattle off a long list of personal faves–but, after all, it\u2019s 3000 years of writing in many languages and over a hundred years of translations that one would still want to read.” His list includes:<\/p>\n

The many translations of classical Chinese poetry and philosophy by David Hinton (especially, for me: the poems of Tu Fu, T\u2019ao Ch\u2019ien, and Meng Chiao);\u00a0Ezra Pound\u2019s\u00a0Cathay<\/em>\u00a0(now in a facsimile edition from New Directions) and his much-maligned masterpiece\u00a0The Confucian Odes<\/em>; A.C. Graham,\u00a0Poems of the Late T\u2019ang<\/em>; Kenneth Rexroth & Ling Chung\u2019s translation of the Sung Dynasty woman poet Li Ch\u2019ing-chao; Gary Snyder,\u00a0Cold Mountain Poems<\/em>\u00a0(Han Shan); Mich\u00e8le M\u00e9tail\u2019s anthology of reversible poems,\u00a0Wild Geese Returning<\/em>\u00a0(tr. Jody Gladding). (For more translations by Pound, Rexroth, Snyder, W.C. Williams, and Hinton, and essays by them on Chinese poetry: my\u00a0The New Directions Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

As for modern and contemporary Chinese poetry: Bei Dao (various translators); Gu Cheng (tr. Joseph Allen); Xi Chuan (tr. Lucas Klein). Lastly,\u00a0David Knechtges\u2019s three-volume translation of the\u00a0Wen xuan<\/em>, a 6th-century anthology of the usually neglected, often ridiculed documentary poetry\u00a0fu<\/em>\u00a0form (also Watson\u2019s\u00a0Chinese Rhyme-Prose<\/em>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s a lot to read!<\/p>\n

Click on the image above for the full list<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 The Asian American Writers’ Workshop has collected recommendations from noted American writers and publishers for what to read of Asian literature. And unsurprisingly, Chinese poets and poetry are well-represented. Barbara Epler, president of New Directions publishing, recommends Li Shangyin … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[1957,1164,50,436,29,1528,434,1443,180,1950,47,38,435,130,1529,1744,45,1901,292,1948,30,1959,1345,402,1958,462,1955,1956,1141,657,1951,1952,1954,1949,1953,1275,1793,315,1654],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8srwF-11E","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2801,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2801","url_meta":{"origin":3946,"position":0},"title":"Omniglot Seminar: Cosmologies of the Classical with Chloe Garcia Roberts & David Hinton","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"September 22, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"David Hinton, author of Mountain Home and\u00a0translator of Chinese poets including\u00a0Wang Wei \u738b\u7dad, Hsieh Ling-Y\u00fcn \u8b1d\u9748\u904b, and Bei Dao \u5317\u5cf6, joins Chloe Garcia Roberts, translator of\u00a0Derangements of My Contemporaries\u00a0by Li Shangyin \u674e\u5546\u96b1. 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