"The Lady of Linshui Pacifies Demons is a seventeenth-century novelistic account of the founding myth of the cult of the Lady of Linshui, the goddess of women, childbirth, and childhood, who is still venerated in Fujian, Taiwan, and other places in Southeast Asia. The goddess's story evolved from the life of Chen Jinggu in Ming dynasty Hunan and has taken the form of vernacular short fiction, legends, plays, sutras, and stele inscriptions at temples where she is worshipped. This "novel" was translated in consultation with Brigitte Baptandier, whose widely praised anthropological study of the goddess's popularity-The Lady of Linshui: A Chinese Female Cult-was published originally in French and later in English translation by Stanford University Press in 2008. Among accounts of goddesses in late imperial China, this work is unique in its focus on the physical aspects of womanhood, especially the dangers of childbirth. It is also unique in dramatizing the contradictory nature of divinities in China through narrating the parallel lives of Chen Jinggu and her spirit double/rival, the White Snake demon who is born as her twin, battles with her over the body of her husband, kills her through devouring her fetus, and finally becomes her spirit mount. This unabridged, annotated translation provides insights into late imperial Chinese religion, the lives of women in the period, and, more broadly, the structure of families and local society"--

The Lady of Linshui—the goddess of women, childbirth, and childhood—is still venerated in south China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. Her story evolved from the life of Chen Jinggu in the eighth century and blossomed in the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) into vernacular short fiction, legends, plays, sutras, and stele inscriptions at temples where she is worshipped. The full-length novel The Lady of Linshui Pacifies Demons narrates Chen Jinggu’s lifelong struggle with and eventual triumph over her spirit double and rival, the White Snake demon. Among accounts of goddesses in late imperial China, this work is unique in its focus on the physical aspects of womanhood, especially the dangers of childbirth, and in its dramatization of the contradictory nature of Chinese divinities. This unabridged, annotated translation provides insights into late imperial Chinese religion, the lives of women, and the structure of families and local society.

This book is a detailed examination of a Chinese women's cult that confronts the dangers of pregnancy, childbirth, and childhood diseases.

Yokohama, California, originally released in 1949, is the first published collection of short stories by a Japanese American. Set in a fictional community, these linked stories are alive with the people, gossip, humor, and legends of Japanese America in the 1930s and 1940s. Replaces ISBN 9780295961675