Japanese Classic Novel Selection (Volume 1 and 2)

Author: Li Shuguo
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-01-01
Features: The Edo period of Japan was a flourishing garden where a variety of popular literary works catering to commoners like townspeople emerged. Among them, the monogatari (readers' novels) were particularly representative. They have a close relationship with the novels of China's Ming and Qing dynasties and were influenced by the vernacular novels of that era. As a result, they feel particularly familiar to us, revealing the long-standing cultural exchange between China and Japan. At the same time, we deeply admire the Japanese people's skill in absorbing foreign cultures and adapting them to create uniquely distinctive national traditions, which is also something worth learning from. The author translated and published a monumental work of monogatari—Mattheo Shūkei's Hachiiki no Hito (The Eight Dogs of Utsunomiya)—in the early 1990s. It is a two-million-word masterpiece that was well-received by readers. In 1998, I published the book Japanese Monogatari Novels and the Ming-Qing Novels, which comprehensively introduces the origin and development of monogatari novels.