A luminous new translation of the greatest woman poet in Chinese history, highlighting Li Qingzhaos iconoclastic verse and showcasing her visionary portrait of the inner workings of the artists mind. The Magpie at Night is a lyrical and searching portrait of the inner life of Li Qingzhao, one of the greatest poets in Chinese literary history. These spare and arresting poems evoke with rare immediacy the quiet and haunting beauty of country life during the Song dynasty; the unseen, restive labor of the poet; and Li Qingzhaos bracing and complex take on what it means to create art as a woman in the shadow of exile, war, imprisonment, and an unwelcoming literary establishment. In Wendy Chens splendid new translation, each of Li Qingzhaos cilyrics that were originally set to musicis as sharp and fresh as the edge of a new spring leaf. These richly textured bolts of melody tell a story that will resonate with scholars eager to restore this iconic figure to the canon of classical Chinese poetry, as well as with contemporary readers who will relate to the strikingly modern mode in which she delivers her wry, unsentimental, and bracing thoughts on art and posterity.
