The Whole World Company - China - Books

STORE SECTIONS

YOUR GUARANTEE

All products and services come with a 30-day return guarantee

Literature

Store > Browse by Country > Asia > China > Literature

	Lao Tzu - Tao Te Ching The classic work of Chinese philosophy, the Tao Te Ching has been translated more often than any other book except the Bible. Traditionally attributed to Lao Tzu, an older contemporary of Confucius, it is now thought that the work was compiled in about the fourth century BCE. An anthology of wise sayings, it offers a model by which the individual can live rather than explaining the human place in the universe. The moral code it encourages is based on modesty and self-restraint, and the rewards reaped for such a life are harmony and flow of life. Publisher: Penguin Classic ISBN: 014044131X Published: 1974 Paperback: 192 pages, 129 x 198 mm Price: £8.99


	Shen Fu - Six Records of a Floating Life Six Records of a Floating Life (1809) is an extraordinary blend of autobiography, love story and social document written by a man who was educated as a scholar but earned his living as a civil servant and art dealer. In this intimate memoir, Shen Fu recounts the domestic and romantic joys of his marriage to Yun, the beautiful and artistic girl he fell in love with as a child. He also describes other incidents of his life, including how his beloved wife obtained a courtesan for him and reflects on his travels through China. Shen Fu's exquisite memoir shows six parallel 'layers' of one man's life, loves and career, with revealing glimpses into Chinese society of the Ch'ing Dynasty. Publisher: Penguin Classics ISBN: 0140444297 Published: 1983 Paperback: 176 pages Price: £8.99


	Wu Ch'eng-en - Monkey Wu Ch'eng-en wrote Monkey in the middle of the sixteenth century, adding to an ancient Chinese legend his own touches of delicacy and humour. The result is an attractive jumble of the absurd and the profound, of religion and history, of anti-bureaucratic satire and pure poetry. While the story tells of Tripitaka's journey to India and what happens on the way, its true theme is man's pilgrimage through life, with Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy symbolizing the diverse elements of human nature. Entertaining and highly readable, Monkey is a unique blend of charm, wisdom and imagination. Publisher: Penguin Classics ISBN: 0140441115 Published: 1973 Paperback: 352 pages Price: £9.99


	Gao Xingjian - Soul Mountain In 1982 Chinese playwright, novelist and artist Gao Xingjian was diagnosed with lung cancer, the very disease which had killed his father. For six weeks Gao inhabited a transcendental state of imminent death, treating himself to the finest foods he could afford while spending time reading in an old graveyard in the Beijing suburbs. But a secondary examination revealed there was no cancer - he had won a 'reprieve from death' and had been thrown back into the world of the living. Faced with a repressive cultural environment and the threat of a spell in a prison farm, Gao fled Beijing. He travelled first to the ancient forests of central China and from there to the east coast, passing through eight provinces and seven nature reserves, a journey of fifteen thousand kilometres over a period of five months. The result of this epic voyage of discovery is Soul Moutain. Interwoven into this picaresque journey are myriad stories and countless memorable characters - from venerable Daoist masters and Buddhist monks and nuns to mythical Wild Men; deadly Qichun snakes to farting buses. Conventions are challenged, preconceptions are thwarted and the human condition, with all its foibles and triumphs, is laid bare. Winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize For Literature Publisher: Flamingo ISBN: 0007119232 Published: 2001 Paperback Price: £7.99


	Gao Xingjian - Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather A young couple on honeymoon visit a beautiful temple up in the mountains, and spend the day intoxicated by the tranquillity of the setting; a swimmer is paralysed by a sudden cramp and finds himself stranded far out to sea on a cold autumn day; a man reminisces about his beloved grandfather, who used to make his own fishing rods from lengths of crooked bamboo straightened over a fire. Blending the crisp immediacy of the present moment with the soft afterglow of memory and nostalgia, these stories hum with simplicity and wisdom. 'Like the expansive, ink-washed abstract paintings..., Xingjian's stories brim with sensual clarity that has as its counterpoint an irresistible psychological confusion' - January Magazine Winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize For Literature Publisher: Harper Perennial ISBN: 0007170394 Published: 2005 Paperback Price: £7.99


	Jung Chang - Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China Few books have ever had such an impact on their readers. Through the story of three generations of women - grandmother, mother and daughter - Wild Swans tells nothing less than the whole tumultuous history of China's tragic twentieth century, from sword-bearing warlords to Chairman Mao, from the Manchu Empire to the Cultural Revolution. At times terrifying, at times astonishing, always deeply moving, Wild Swans is a book in a million, a true story with all the passion and grandeur of a great novel. Publisher: Harper Perennial ISBN: 0007176155 Published: 2004 Paperback Price: £9.99


	Ma Jian - Red Dust 'My painter friends think I am a die-hard conservative, my writer friends think I am a man of loose morals. In Jushlin Temple I am a quiet disciple, in the Propaganda Department I am a decadent youth. Women call me a cynical artist, the police call me a hooligan. Well, they can think what they like. I only have 20,000 days left to live.' In 1983, Ma Jian turned 30 and was overwhelmed by the desire to escape the confines of his life in Beijing. All around him, China was changing. Deng Xiaoping was introducing economic reform but clamping down on 'Spiritual Pollution'; young people were rebelling. With his long hair, denim jeans and artistic friends, Ma Jian was under surveillance from his work unit and the police. His ex-wife was seeking custody of their daughter; his girlfriend was sleeping with another man; and he could no longer find the inspiration to write or paint. One day he bought a train ticket to the westernmost border of China and set off in search of himself. Ma Jian's journey would last three years and take him to deserts and overpopulated cities, from scenes of barbarity to havens of tranquillity and beauty. The result is an utterly unique book: an insight into the teeming contradictions of China that only a man who was both an insider and an outsider in his own country could have written. Publisher: Vintage ISBN: 0099283298 Published: 2002 Paperback: 336 pages Price: £7.99


	Qian Zhongshu - Fortress Besieged Fortress Besieged is China's greatest modern classic - a brilliant, amusing and witty fusion of East and West culture. The title is taken from an old French proverb, 'Marriage is like a fortress besieged: those who are outside want to get in, and those who are inside want to get out'. Set on the eve of the ferocious Sino-Japanese War, Fortress Besieged recounts the exuberant misadventures of the hapless hero Fang Hung-chien. This masterwork of world literature plays with Western traditions, picaresque humour, tragic-comedy, satire, Eastern philosophy and the mores of middle-class Chinese society to create its own unique feast of delights. Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 0713998350 Published: 2005 Hardback: 448 pages, 153 x 234 mm Price: £18.99


	Cao Xueqin - The Story of the Stone (vol. 1) - The Golden Days The Story of the Stone (c. 1760), also known as The Dream of the Red Chamber, is the great novel of manners in Chinese literature. Divided into five volumes, The Story of the Stone charts the glory and decline of the illustrious Jia family. This novel re-creates the ritualized hurly-burly of Chinese family life that would otherwise be lost and infuses it with affirming Buddhist belief. Publisher: Penguin Classics ISBN: 0140442936 Published: 1973 Paperback: 544 pages Price: £12.99


	Cao Xueqin - The Story of the Stone (vol. 4) - The Debt of Tears The Story of the Stone (c. 1760), also known as The Dream of the Red Chamber, is the great novel of manners in Chinese literature. Divided into five volumes, of which The Debt of Tears is the fourth, it charts the glory and decline of the illustrious Jia family (a story which closely accords with the fortunes of the author's own family). The two main characters, Bao-yu and Dai-yu, are set against a rich tapestry of humour, realistic detail and delicate poetry, which accurately reflects the ritualized hurly-burly of Chinese family life. But over and above the novel hangs the constant reminder that there is another plane of existence - a theme which affirms the Buddhist belief in a supernatural scheme of things. Publisher: Penguin Classics ISBN: 0140443711 Published: 1982 Paperback: 400 pages Price: £13.99


	Cao Xueqin - The Story of the Stone (vol. 5) - The Dreamer Wakes The Story of the Stone (c. 1760), also known as The Dream of the Red Chamber, is the great novel of manners in Chinese literature. Divided into five volumes, of which The Dreamer Wakes is the fifth, it charts the glory and decline of the illustrious Jia family (a story which closely accords with the fortunes of the author's own family). The two main characters, Bao-yu and Dai-yu, are set against a rich tapestry of humour, realistic detail and delicate poetry, which accurately reflects the ritualized hurly-burly of Chinese family life. But over and above the novel hangs the constant reminder that there is another plane of existence - a theme which affirms the Buddhist belief in a supernatural scheme of things. Publisher: Penguin Classics ISBN: 014044372X Published: 1986 Paperback: 384 pages Price: £13.99


	Li Po and Tu Fu - Poems More than forty selections from two eighth-century poets of China cover the whole spectrum of human life and feeling. Li Po and Tu Fu are traditionally regarded by the Chinese as their two greatest poets. Together their poetry encompasses all of human nature. Escapist but earthy, spiritual but realistic, romantic but precise, these two are often appropriately referred to as one poet, 'Li-Tu'. Publisher: Penguin Classics ISBN: 0140442723 Published: 1973 Paperback: 256 pages Price: £9.99


	Sun Tzu - The Art of War Written in China over two thousand years ago, Sun Tzu's The Art of War provides the first known attempt to formulate a rational basis for the planning and conduct of military operations. These wise, aphoristic essays contain principles acted upon by such twentieth-century Chinese generals as Mao Tse Tung. Samuel Griffith offers a much-needed translation of this classic which makes it even more relevant to the modern world. Including an explanatory introduction and selected commentaries on the work, this edition makes Sun Tzu's timeless classic extremely accessible to students of Chinese history and culture, as well as to anyone interested in the military and political issues in present-day China. Publisher: Oxford University Press Translator: Samuel B. Griffith ISBN: 0195014766 Published: 1971 Paperback: 216 pages, 216 x 138 mm Price: £6.50

Store > Browse by Country > Asia > China > Literature

CART DETAILS

HELP

For all the information you need on shopping at our store, click here

For help with your order, click on the Help link