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Translated by Julie Landau

Translations from the Asian Classics

NEW YORK: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1997 275 PAGES

Reviewed by Beata Grant

This elegant book is a fitting addition to a publication series which, since 1961, has published translations of classic works of literature from India, China and Japan by such master translators as Burton Watson, Donald Keene, and Barbara Stoler Miller. Julie Landau’s translation of Chinese tz’u or song-lyrics from the Sung Dynasty (960–1279) is limited to a selection of works by fifteen poets. However, her judicious choice of which authors and poems to include and her spare yet evocative translations effectively capture and convey the essential qualities of this particular Chinese poetic genre.