Mingyuan Hu – författare

The Annals of the Warring States records the School of Diplomacy at work during one of the most captivating times in Chinese history. In four dialogues, thinking beings challenge sovereign power in ways that surprise and resonate. They make visible an astonishing relationship between politics and the intellect, and echo our notions of oratory and democracy in differing contexts. This book is part of the Erstwhile Series.

The prodigious aristocrat Qu Yuan was a minister of Chu, a major power during the Warring States. Pressing for Vertical Alliance but not listened to, he was twice exiled. Bewailing affliction, he wrote verses in the Chu dialect, and liberated poetry from the four-syllable metre. Qu Yuan's vers libre, like his suicide, has been immortalised in East Asia, as one honours the Romantic poet and a wounded statesman, ill-treated and loyal to the end. Attribution to Qu Yuan has at times been disputed; some opuses stand emblematic. Two prose pieces and two poems are offered in a new translation by Mingyuan Hu. This book is part of the Erstwhile Series.

Elegance of personality, a peculiar notion of the Chinese literati, is encapsulated in the Shishuo Xinyu - character sketches from the fifth century of elevated, often eccentric, beings. Bygone archetypes of soaring individuality, poets, politicians, artists, and musicians here come in an ensemble of the eremitic and extravagant, selected from the Shishuo and translated by Mingyuan Hu. This book is part of the Erstwhile Series.

Elegance of personality, a peculiar notion of the Chinese literati, is encapsulated in the Shishuo Xinyu - character sketches from the fifth century of elevated, often eccentric, beings. Bygone archetypes of soaring individuality, poets, politicians, artists, and musicians here come in an ensemble of the bold and untrammelled, selected from the Shishuo and translated by Mingyuan Hu. This book is part of the Erstwhile Series.

Fou Lei (1908-1966) is modern China's most renowned critic-translator. This biography is a revelation of his formative years in Europe between the Wars, and an investigation of his existential struggles between Revolutions. Other than minor corrections, this edition is identical to the Brill version (2017; 2020), discontinued since 2022.

The tragic conscience of modern China's most revered critic-translator is portrayed in this biography. Discoveries made in Parisian archives by the biographer illuminate Fou Lei's youthful journey, a little-known cross-cultural story; a global intellectual history. This edition is a revised version of Fou Lei: An Insistence on Truth (Brill, 2017; Hermits United, 2023). It is a concomitant publication of Fou Lai. Un heros vaincu, translated into the French by Mael Renouard.