The Dragon King's Daughter: Ten Tang Dynasty Stories

by Gladys Yang (Translator), Yang Xianyi (Translator)

The Tang Dynasty (618-907) was a golden age of poetry and short stories. In the brief span of two hundred and ninety years many outstanding poets and story writers appeared, including men like Li Po, Tu Fu, Pai Chu-yi, Li Kung-tso and Pai Hsing-chien, who have left works which will live forever. Over fifty thousand poems and over four hundred stories of the Tang Dynasty are extant today, reflecting glory on China’s ancient civilization and making no mean contribution to world literature. The ten stories in this collection can be divided into three main stories of the supernatural, stories with a political theme or adventure stories, and love stories. The Tang stories arose following the political, economic and cultural upsurge of the period. They continued the Six Dynasties tradition of supernatural tales and, influenced by contemporary art and minstrelsy and by the vernacular Buddhist literature, developed vigorously. The stories in this collection are arranged in chronological order, together with a brief account of the author. These ten tales are a fair sample of the chief types of Tang stories, and from them we can glimpse something of China’s rich and varied literary heritage.

Genres: China, Fiction, Classics, Historical Fiction, Short Stories

124 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1954

About the author

Gladys Yang (Chinese: 戴乃迭; pinyin: Dài Nǎidié; 19 January 1919 – 18 November 1999) was a British translator of Chinese literature and the wife of another noted literary translator, Yang Xianyi. Her father was a missionary to China and, from childhood, she became intrigued by Chinese culture.

Born Gladys Margaret Tayler in Beijing, she returned to England as a child and became Oxford University's first graduate in Chinese language in 1940. She met Yang at Oxford. After their marriage, the Beijing-based couple became prominent translators of Chinese literature into English during the latter half of the twentieth century at the Foreign Languages Press.
[Wikipedia]

Reviews

[Jasper O. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Based on other translations and on her reputation, I have the utmost confidence that Gladys Yang has accurately translated these stories from the Tang era (618 to 907). However, both the fiction/fantasy and the political jokes/comments in these stories are products of their time and have not really aged well for modern audiences. Still, there were some stories with interesting morals or funny parts to them.

So, if you want to read these stories as they were originally written (from a historic or academic viewpoint), this is a good collection for you. If you want to read them for entertainment, you are better off reading a modernized and more curated collection, e.g.:
- Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies
- Chinese Myths and Folk Tales
- Chinese Myths & Tales
- Chinese Fairy Tales and Legends

[SANDRA RIVERO ALBA · Rating 4 out of 5]

En este pequeño libro se narran algunos relatos de la dinastía Tang, acerca de hermosas princesas y deslumbrantes cortesanas, viajes a reinos imaginarios, mutaciones fantásticas y trágicas historias de amor, ya os adelanto que el papel de la mujer es meramente decorativo, en todos los cuentos solo destacan por la belleza, aunque muchas llegan a demostrar grandes dotes de líder, jamás se destacan.
Rodeado de un ambiente mágico y fantasioso mezclado con realidad, esta selección de cuentos nos acerca a una época de gran esplendor artístico, donde el misticismo y la realidad muchas veces se confunden en una China preocupada por la estética y los convencionalismos sociales.
La hija del rey dragón y la Historia de la Bella Li Wa son mis favoritas, en ellas la mujer es algo más que un jarrón decorativo y su personaje cobra trascendencia en la historia y la evolución del personaje masculino, que es quien lleva siempre el peso del cuento.
Las ilustraciones de la época de la Dinastía Ming son el complemento perfecto de este conjunto de relatos de la china feudal.

Muy entretenido, y desde luego otro acierto en las compras de libros de ocasión, aunque para ser consecuente, debería remitirme a las “librerías de viejo”( que me gusta este término).
#literaturaasiatica #literaturachina #relatos

[Bernie Gourley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This thin anthology contains ten stories from varied writers of the Tang Dynasty. The stories include a mix of speculative fiction, political fiction, and love stories -- some being cross-genre pieces that mix elements of more than one of these categories.

I found a wide variation in how engaging the stories were. The best of them were quite good. The Spendthrift and the Alchemist, The White Monkey, and the titular The Dragon King's Daughter were among my favorites. Each of those stories included a supernatural element, but also a thought-provoking premise.

If you enjoy Tang Dynasty literature and would like to try some of this golden literary age's short fiction, this book is a quick and pleasant read.

[Mh430 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun read but a really quick one.

Ten short (short!) stories packed into less than 100 pages means these are actually more like sketches but it's still a nice collection of historical personages and supernatural entities showing the diversity of Imperial Chinese literature. But considering how much fiction survives from the Tang Dynasty this could and should have been a much larger anthology.

[Seppe Boonen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This made me want to take a class in Chinese literature !

[Lucia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lo escuhe en audio libro y me relajo muchísimo ✨️ me cuestan mucho las lecturas orientales pero me pareció linda