Complete Collection of Li Yu‘s Poetry (English-Chinese Edition): The Last Ruler of Southern Tang, His Verses & Related Records

Li Yu (937–978) was the last emperor of the Southern Tang dynasty. He was a terrible ruler, but he is celebrated in Chinese literary history as the “Emperor of Ci Poetry.” After his kingdom fell, he spent his final years as a captive, and it was during this imprisonment that he wrote the poems that made him immortal — lines soaked in regret, longing, and the unbearable weight of lost freedom. The great scholar Wang Guowei said of him: “It was only with Li Yu that ci poetry broadened its vision and deepened its feeling.”

This collection was compiled and translated by Zhu Manhua, a certified Senior Translator recognized by the Translators Association of China in 1995 and former head of the Foreign Languages Department at Capital University of Economics and Business-34. His guiding principle is simple: translate poetry as poetry. He does not translate word-for-word. He recreates the imagery and mood of the original in English verse-50.

What makes this edition special is its completeness. Beyond Li Yu's surviving poems, the compiler gathered scattered fragments quoted in classical texts, Li Yu's own epitaph, poems by his father Li Jing and grandfather Li Bian, and even works of disputed authorship — each clearly labeled as such-35. In other words, you are not just getting the poems. You are getting the full picture of a man and his world.

Who is this for? If you are learning Chinese, the bilingual annotations help you grasp the original imagery and allusions in a way that plain modern translations often lose-34. If you already know Li Yu's work in Chinese, the English translations offer a fresh encounter — a chance to see how a seasoned translator handles lines like “Cut it, yet it will not sever; sort it, yet it tangles again.” And if you simply love poetry, Li Yu needs no introduction. Sorrow and beauty speak across languages without asking for permission.