Book World: New translation reveals the delights - and flaws - of the classic Chinese tale
Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
March 3, 2021
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Penguin Classics. 384 pp. $30
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What do you do when a book - a classic, no less, and one beloved by millions of readers - proves disappointing?
I had expected to love Monkey King, the new translation and abridgment by Julia Lovell of the episodic 16th-century Chinese novel, Hsi-yu chi, also known as Journey to the West. The book was first published anonymously, and its authorship is consequently uncertain, though usually attributed to a minor poet and littérateur named Wu Cheng en.
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