Bai Xingjian (, 776–826) was a Chinese novelist and poet in

imperial China The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC), during the reign of king Wu Ding. Ancient historical texts such as the '' Book of Documents'' (early chapte ...

Tang Dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...

. He was a younger brother of the famed poet

Bai Juyi Bai Juyi (also Bo Juyi or Po Chü-i; ; 772–846), courtesy name Letian (樂天), was a renowned Chinese poet and Tang dynasty government official. Many of his poems concern his career or observations made about everyday life, including as g ...

. One of his most famous works is the novella ''

The Tale of Li Wa ''The Tale of Li Wa'' () is a short novella by Bai Xingjian (or Bo Xingjian). Song Geng (C: 宋耕, P: ''Sòng Gēng''), author of ''The Fragile Scholar: Power and Masculinity in Chinese Culture'', wrote that this was one of three Tang Dynasty ...

''. It has been translated into English many times: * by

Arthur Waley Arthur David Waley (born Arthur David Schloss, 19 August 188927 June 1966) was an English orientalist and sinologist who achieved both popular and scholarly acclaim for his translations of Chinese and Japanese poetry. Among his honours were th ...

in ''More Translations from the Chinese'' (1919) — as "The Story of Miss Li". * by

Yang Xianyi Yang Xianyi (; January 10, 1915 – November 23, 2009) was a Chinese literary translator, known for rendering many ancient and a few modern Chinese classics into English, including '' Dream of the Red Mansions''. Life and career Born into a wea ...

and

Gladys Yang Gladys Yang (; 19 January 1919 – 18 November 1999) was a British translator of Chinese literature and the wife of another noted literary translator, Yang Xianyi. Biography She was born Gladys Margaret Tayler at the Peking Union Medical Col ...

in ''The Dragon King's Daughter: Ten T'ang Dynasty Stories'' (1962) — as "Story of a Singsong Girl". * by Glen Dudbridge in ''The Tale of Li Wa: Study and Critical Edition of a Chinese Story from the Ninth Century'' (1983). It was also translated into many other languages, for example German by

Franz Kuhn Franz Walther Kuhn (10 March 1884 – 22 January 1961) was a lawyer and a translator chiefly remembered for translating many Chinese novels into German, most famously the ''Dream of the Red Chamber''. Biography Kuhn studied law at the Universit ...

and French by André Lévy. He is also believed to have written the poem "

Tiandi yinyang jiaohuan dalefu "Tiandi yinyang jiaohuan dalefu" () is a Chinese rhymed prose poem ('' fu)'' on sexual intercourse attributed to Tang poet Bai Xingjian (776–826). Although it is considered a lost work, fragments of the poem were discovered as part of the Dun ...

References

776 births 826 deaths 8th-century Chinese poets 9th-century Chinese poets 9th-century writers Tang dynasty novelists Tang dynasty poets {{China-bio-stub

Further reading

References