China’s most outrageous character—the magical Monkey who battles a hundred monsters—returns to the fray in this seventeenth-century sequel to the Buddhist novel Journey to the West. In The Tower of Myriad Mirrors, he defends his claim to enlightenment against a villain who induces hallucinations that take Monkey into the past, to heaven and hell, and even through a sex change. The villain turns out to be the personification of his own desires, aroused by his penetration of a female adversary’s body in Journey to the West. The Tower of Myriad Mirrors is the only novel of Tung Yüeh (1620–1686), a monk and Confucian scholar. Tung picks up the slapstick of the original tale and overlays it with Buddhist theory and bitter satire of the Ming government’s capitulation to the Manchus. After a nod to Journey’s storyteller format, Tung carries Monkey’s quest into an evocation of shifting psychological states rarely found in premodern fiction. An important though relatively unknown link in the development of the Chinese novel, and a window into late Ming intellectual history, The Tower of Myriad Mirrors further rewards by being a wonderful read.

The weird and whimsical short stories in Strange Tales from Liaozhai show their author, Pu Songling (1640-1715), to be both an explorer of the macabre, like Edgar Allan Poe, and a moralist, like Aesop. In this first complete translation of the collection's 494 stories into English, readers will encounter supernatural creatures, natural disasters, magical aspects of Buddhist and Daoist spirituality, and a wide range of Chinese folklore. Annotations are provided to clarify unfamiliar references or cultural allusions, and introductory essays have been included to explain facets of Pu Songling's work and to provide context for some of the unique qualities of his uncanny tales. This is the second of 6 volumes.

Fictions of Enlightenment is the first book to examine the fascinating and intricate relationship between Buddhism and the development of Chinese vernacular fiction. Qiancheng Li brings Buddhist models to bear on the vision, structure, and narrative form of three classics of late imperial literature—Journey to the West, Tower of Myriad Mirrors, and Dream of the Red Chamber—arguing that by fashioning their plots after the narratives of certain Mahāyāna sutras, the novelists transformed Buddhist concepts into narrative structures. Within the traditional Chinese novel Li even defines a new genre: the fiction of enlightenment.

China’s most outrageous character—the magical Monkey who battles a hundred monsters—returns to the fray in this seventeenth-century sequel to the Buddhist novel Journey to the West. In The Tower of Myriad Mirrors, he defends his claim to enlightenment against a villain who induces hallucinations that take Monkey into the past, to heaven and hell, and even through a sex change. The villain turns out to be the personification of his own desires, aroused by his penetration of a female adversary’s body in Journey to the West. The Tower of Myriad Mirrors is the only novel of Tung Yüeh (1620–1686), a monk and Confucian scholar. Tung picks up the slapstick of the original tale and overlays it with Buddhist theory and bitter satire of the Ming government’s capitulation to the Manchus. After a nod to Journey’s storyteller format, Tung carries Monkey’s quest into an evocation of shifting psychological states rarely found in premodern fiction. An important though relatively unknown link in the development of the Chinese novel, and a window into late Ming intellectual history, The Tower of Myriad Mirrors further rewards by being a wonderful read.

The bestselling Journey to the West comic book by artist Chang Boon Kiat is now back in a brand new fully coloured edition. Journey to the West is one of the greatest classics in Chinese literature. It tells the epic tale of the monk Xuanzang who journeys to the West in search of the Buddhist sutras with his disciples, Sun Wukong, Sandy and Pigsy. Along the way, Xuanzang's life was threatened by the diabolical White Bone Spirit, the menacing Red Child and his fearsome parents and, a host of evil spirits who sought to devour Xuanzang's flesh to attain immortality. Bear witness to the formidable Sun Wukong's (Monkey God) prowess as he takes them on, using his Fiery Eyes, Golden Cudgel, Somersault Cloud, and quick wits! Be prepared for a galloping read that will leave you breathless!