The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 1: Volume 1

Anthony C. Yu

Apr 2013 · University of Chicago Press

About this ebook

Anthony C. Yu’s translation of The Journey to the West,initially published in 1983, introduced English-speaking audiences to the classic Chinese novel in its entirety for the first time. Written in the sixteenth century, The Journey to the West tells the story of the fourteen-year pilgrimage of the monk Xuanzang, one of China’s most famous religious heroes, and his three supernatural disciples, in search of Buddhist scriptures. Throughout his journey, Xuanzang fights demons who wish to eat him, communes with spirits, and traverses a land riddled with a multitude of obstacles, both real and fantastical. An adventure rich with danger and excitement, this seminal work of the Chinese literary canonis by turns allegory, satire, and fantasy.
With over a hundred chapters written in both prose and poetry, The Journey to the West has always been a complicated and difficult text to render in English while preserving the lyricism of its language and the content of its plot. But Yu has successfully taken on the task, and in this new edition he has made his translations even more accurate and accessible. The explanatory notes are updated and augmented, and Yu has added new material to his introduction, based on his original research as well as on the newest literary criticism and scholarship on Chinese religious traditions. He has also modernized the transliterations included in each volume, using the now-standard Hanyu Pinyin romanization system. Perhaps most important, Yu has made changes to the translation itself in order to make it as precise as possible.

One of the great works of Chinese literature, The Journey to the West is not only invaluable to scholars of Eastern religion and literature, but, in Yu’s elegant rendering, also a delight for any reader.

Ratings and reviews

i bought this because I'd heard good things about JTTW and heard it was inspiration for some stuff the price is surprisingly high but knowing this is a translation from a Chinese book from the 16th century, it's understandable that the price correlates with the effort put in. the story was interesting and enjoyable, I won't bother explaining it as you can just Google a short summary of it on Google however I will mention that one of my main concerns was whether most interesting character, Sun Wukong (in my opinion) was gonna be insignificant but now I can say for sure that he can definitely be considered the main character even if he's technically not which made me very happy. the reason I'm rating this 4 stars is because the quest involves quite a bit of religious stuff and as an atheist who doesn't know much about any religion it alienates the story too much for a 5 star review. all in all though, it's a good story and I'd recommend giving it a try if you're curious about it.

Great read but this is a really bad price point very overpriced for one book and to read the whole journey its over $90 for the three volumes. Disappointed

Ridiculous. Tried to view sample to see if worth paying the price compared to other books. Sample only showed: Preface to THIS book, Preface to EARLIER edition, and Introduction..... seriously???

About the author

Anthony C. Yu is the Carl Darling Buck Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago.