New Zhuangzi Translation: The Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi 莊子內篇匯評詮釋

John R. Williams and Christoph Harbsmeier have recently published a new translation of the inner chapters of Zhuangzi: 莊子內篇匯評詮釋 The Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi: With Copious Annotations from the Chinese Commentaries, through Harrassowitz Verlag. Wiesbaden. Hardcopies and e-copies are available through this link. (Williams notes that the press is not selling the book through Amazon, and so it is being listed there at an exorbitant price. It is more reasonably priced at the publisher’s site.)

Please read the introduction below to know more about the translation.

This book is the first interlinear bilingual edition of the core Inner Chapters of the book Zhuangzi, which must be counted among the most famous texts in Chinese intellectual and literary history. A special feature of this edition is that it follows the specific rhythm and rhyme of the text in the translation, making it possible to experience the particular style of this most exciting of the ancient Chinese philosophers.

An extensive introduction explains the history and the literary nature of the text, and in particular it tells the story of how this text was appreciated and commented upon in China and translated into foreign languages through the ages. Extensive footnotes are provided to enable Western readers to read the text through the eyes of the enthusiastic Chinese commentators who have annotated the text over the centuries: traditional Chinese literary as well as philosophical commentaries are presented in detail in the original classical Chinese and in translation.
For the general reader this book will offer a rare opportunity to approach one of the most outrageously unconventional texts of world literature with the philosophical and philological perspectives of the greatest of its literate Chinese connoisseurs.
For the student of Chinese this book will serve as a bilingual cornucopia of spirited classical Chinese discourse on a fiercely contested and always controversially discussed crucial text in the Daoist tradition of ancient China.

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