Horizon Information Portal

e-branch

Home

My Account/Renew Loans

Find Magazine Articles & more

The banished immortal : a life of Li Bai (Li Po) / Ha Jin.

by Jin, Ha, 1956-

View full image

Pantheon Books, 2019.

Li, Bai, 701-762.

Li, Bai, 701-762 -- Criticism and interpretation.

Poets, Chinese -- Biography.

Chinese poetry -- Tang dynasty, 618-907 -- Translations into English.

9781524747411 (hc.)

Alternate title:

Life of Li Bai (Li Po)

xi, 301 p. ; 22 cm.

Text in English; poems in original Chinese with English translations.

Includes bibliographical references.

Origins -- Away from home -- Back in his hometown -- Leaving Sichuan -- Dissipation -- Marriage -- Married life -- In the capital -- Away from the capital -- In the north -- In the south -- Moving to the Lu region -- Women -- In the capital again -- Political involvement -- The meeting of two stars -- Life in transition -- On the road again -- New marriage -- On the northeastern frontier -- Moving to the south -- An unexpected guest -- Escaping from the rebels -- Imprisonment -- Disillusion and the end.

"From the National Book Award-winning author of Waiting: a narratively driven, deeply human biography of the Tang dynasty poet Li Bai, also known as Li Po. In his own time (701-762), Li Bai's poems--shaped by Daoist thought and characterized by their passion, romance, and lust for life--were never given their proper due by the official literary gatekeepers. Nonetheless, his lines rang out on the lips of court entertainers, tavern singers, soldiers, and writers throughout the Tang dynasty, and his deep desire for a higher, more perfect world gave rise to his nickname, the Banished Immortal. Today, Bai's verses are still taught to China's schoolchildren and recited at parties and toasts; they remain an inextricable part of the Chinese language. With the instincts of a master novelist, Ha Jin draws on a wide range of historical and literary sources to weave the great poet's life story. He follows Bai from his origins on the western frontier to his rambling travels as a young man, which were filled with striving but also with merry abandon, as he raised cups of wine with friends and fellow poets. Ha Jin also takes us through the poet's later years--in which he became swept up in a military rebellion that altered the course of China's history--and the mysterious circumstances of his death, which are surrounded by legend. [This book] is an extraordinary portrait of a poet who both transcended his time and was shaped by it, and whose ability to live, love, and mourn without reservation produced some of the most enduring verses."--Dust jacket.

Horizon Information Portal 3.24_8902M

© 2001-2013 SirsiDynix All rights reserved.

Horizon Information Portal