Author Description

Poetry. Prose. Asian Studies. Translated from the Chinese by Burton Watson. This volume consists of twenty-five of Watson's new translations, shown alongside Lu You's poems as they appear in the original. In addition to the poems, Watson includes English translations of excerpts from Lu You's famous Ra Draii (Diary of a Trip to Shu), written in 1170, which describes his experiences on a journey he took to assume the duties of vice governor in the province of Kuizhou. Lu You (1125-1210) whose pen name was 'The Old Man Who Does as He Pleases, ' was among the most prolific of Chinese poets, having left behind a collection of close to ten thousand poems as well as miscellaneous prose writings. Burton Watson is a distinguished translator from the Chinese and Japanese who has translated several works. "Burton Watson is the finest, most consistent, most generous translator of Chinese literature of this century" -- Gary Snyder