Winners and Losers in a World of Wind and Dust - by Stephen H West & Wilt Idema Hardcover

About the Book

This book provides a rich array of texts (songs, plays, an tales) from early Chinese vernacular literature that deal with the popular theme of the student-courtesan relation in all its aspects.

Book Synopsis

Love affairs of the young men from eminent families and the courtesans who were trained to entertain (and to fleece) them were a popular theme in the Chinese vernacular literature of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The stories of these happy and disastrous affairs were popular with all genres of performative literature. This volume offers a representative selection of texts on the grandeur et misère of the working girls and their Chinese and Jurchen patrons. Alongside popular works by famous playwrights such as Guan Hanqing and Shi Junbao, This volume also offers a wide range of scintillating texts by lesser known and anonymous authors.

About the Author

Stephen H. West, Ph.D. 1977, University of Michigan, is Louis Agassiz Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley and Foundation Professor of Chinese Emeritus at Arizona State University. He has published monographs, many articles in English and Chinese on Chinese literature of the period 1100-1450.
Wilt L. Idema, Ph.D. 1974, taught Chinese literature at Leiden University (1970-1999) and Harvard University (2000-2013). He has published widely on the vernacular literary traditions of late imperial China. Together with Stephen H. West he has published several volumes of translations from early Chinese drama.