xuanji

Yu Xuanji (c. 843-868) was a concubine, a Daoist priestess, and a poet who was executed at the age of twenty-six on dubious accusations of murder. Though only approximately fifty of her poems have survived, she is now the most famous woman poet of the Tang dynasty.

Lucas Klein is Associate Professor of Chinese at Arizona State University and Associate Editor of the Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature. His publications include The Organization of Distance and, as coeditor, Chinese Poetry and Translation and The Bloomsbury Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature in Translation. He is also the translator of poetry by Mang Ke, Li Shangyin, Duo Duo, and Xi Chuan.