The Road to Heaven, a Romantic but Doomed Journey to Chase the Sun The most famous Chinese American novelist in the contemporary English-speaking world, winner of the National Book Award and the PEN Center of the United States /
Faulkner Award winner and Chinese-American writer Ha Jin writes a passionate and profound biography of the most legendary poet in ancient times - Li Bai
Faulkner Award winner and Chinese-American writer Ha Jin writes a passionate and profound biography of the most legendary poet in ancient times - Li Bai
Wang Dewei (Academician of the Academia Sinica, Edward C. Henderson Professor of East Asian Studies and Comparative Literature at Harvard University): Ha Jin himself is a poet. He once dreamed of constructing his "free life" from poetry. In a changing world, he has earned a place in Europe and America with his English novels, but a throbbing feeling of "poetry" has probably always been lingering in his heart. He has published several poetry collections, and many years later, he finally faced Li Bai and questioned the possibilities and impossibilities of being a poet in the Tang Dynasty - and in the present, or in any other era.
Li Bai, the most legendary and romantic poet of the Tang Dynasty, has become a catchy everyday language in the Chinese-speaking world. Due to his outstanding talent and long-standing reputation, there are many romantic legends about Li Bai's life and death that are as far-fetched as myths: he was said to be the incarnation of Venus, and was the first Chinese poet to use the image of the moon extensively; he was able to write poems while drinking and was free and unrestrained, which earned him the reputation of the Immortal Poet; there are even more different stories about his death...
Ha Jin, a Chinese-American writer living in the United States, reviewed relevant research on Sinology, and used his pen to integrate plot elaboration and vivid dialogue. At the same time, he used clear academic research and rigorous research to complete a non-fictional biography that is as interesting and easy to read as a novel. Based on the historical records of the events that Li Bai experienced in various periods, supplemented by Li Bai's poems that have been passed down to later generations, a thousand years later, the time and space background of the creation was restored, outlining a complete and vivid Li Bai.
Ha Jin interprets Li Bai's poems with his own training in English and American poetry, striving for simplicity while maintaining narrative fluency, and then connects Li Bai and his works in the heyday of the Tang Dynasty with the modern world, allowing readers to empathize, appreciate, and understand. The real Li Bai in history, the Li Bai created by the poet himself, and the Li Bai created by historical and cultural imagination are all told in this book.
Celebrity Recommendations
Recommended by famous domestic writers and scholars / Wang Dewei (Academician of the Academia Sinica, Edward C. Henderson Professor of East Asian Studies and Comparative Literature at Harvard University)
Wang Congwei, Li Youcheng, Gao Jiaqian, Chen Rongbin, Shan Dexing (arranged in alphabetical order)
Positive reviews from international media
A detailed introduction to the life and poetry of the eighth-century Taoist poet, Ha Jin's beautiful biography will help more readers understand the politics and beauty of China's leading representative poet. --Publishers Weekly
The laborers who delivered goods along the rugged roads, the young women who waited for years for their fiancés to return from the expedition, the brave soldiers stationed in the far north who could not wait to return home, Li Bai's poems captured this kind of intimate longing and pain, which brought him immortal political and religious beliefs. - "New Yorker"
This book is a moving and empathetic portrait of a literary genius whose life story (full of ambition, vulnerability, loss and pain) would put even Shakespeare's plays to shame. --Wall Street Journal