Japanese Readings of Famous Novels (Upper and Lower Parts)

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 China's Ming and Qing Dynasty novels and were influenced by the vernacular novels of that era. As a result, they feel very 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 national traditions, which is also something worth learning from. The author translated and published the monumental work of monogatari—Mattheo Shūkei's Hachiiki no Hito (The Eight Dogs of Uji no Kuni)—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 Ming-Qing Novels, providing a comprehensive introduction to the origins and development of monogatari.