Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Magpie at Night: The Complete Poems of Li Qingzhao (1084-1151)

The Magpie at Night: The Complete Poems of Li Qingzhao (1084-1151)

Qingzhao, Li
Chen, Wendy

Paperback

Literary CriticismGeneral Poetry

Publisher Price: $18.00

ISBN10: 0374612757
ISBN13: 9780374612757
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: Feb 25 2025
Pages: 144
Weight: 0.33
Height: 0.41 Width: 5.44 Depth: 8.20
Language: English

A luminous new translation of the greatest woman poet in Chinese history, highlighting Li Qingzhao's iconoclastic verse and showcasing her visionary portrait of the inner workings of the artist's mind.

The Magpie at Night is a lyrical and searching portrait of the inner life of Li Qingzhao, one of the greatest poets in Chinese literary history. These spare and arresting poems evoke with rare immediacy the quiet and haunting beauty of country life during the Song dynasty; the unseen, restive labor of the poet; and Li Qingzhao's bracing and complex take on what it means to create art as a woman in the shadow of exile, war, imprisonment, and an unwelcoming literary establishment.

In Wendy Chen's splendid new translation, each of Li Qingzhao's ci--lyrics that were originally set to music--is as sharp and fresh as the edge of a new spring leaf. These richly textured bolts of melody tell a story that will resonate with scholars eager to restore this iconic figure to the canon of classical Chinese poetry, as well as with contemporary readers who will relate to the strikingly modern mode in which she delivers her wry, unsentimental, and bracing thoughts on art and posterity.

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