Twenty-Nine Goodbyes

Timothy Billings is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Middlebury College, where his expertise spans classical Chinese literature and Shakespeare. Billings has edited and translated three award-winning bilingual critical editions that draw upon Chinese sources: Victor Segalen's Steles / ???? (with Christopher Bush), Matteo Ricci's Essay on Friendship / ???: One Hundred Maxims for a Chinese Prince, and Ezra Pound's Cathay / ?. His work bridges the gap between Eastern and Western literary traditions and enriches the study and appreciation of classical Chinese poetry and its influence on global literature.

"A fascinating initiation to the delights of Chinese verse." - Publishers Weekly "Critically acute and compulsively readable, Twenty-Nine Goodbyes offers an illuminating introduction to Chinese poetry and poetics through the shifting lens of translation. Billings's 'cubist collage' of renderings of a famous parting poem by Li Bai is equally a meditation on the challenges - and the pleasures - of translating the untranslatable, all conveyed in a vibrant, colloquial teacherly voice. Readers will close this book with a sense of parting from a newly found old friend." - David Damrosch, author of Around the World in 80 Books "Timothy Billings's introduction to Chinese poetry through twenty-nine reinventions of a single Li Bai poem is a tour de force of literary analysis, multilingual erudition, and the blended pleasures and frustrations of reading poetry in translation. This lively, accessible, and often funny introduction will enlighten newcomers and scholars alike." - Anna Shields, Princeton University "More than just an excellent primer in classical Chinese poetry (which it is), Twenty-Nine Goodbyes shows how Chinese poetry and Anglo-American poetic traditions intertwine. Bristling with detail and poetic insight, the book shows what it means to translate between languages and traditions, and more importantly, what it means to make poetry. A gem of a book." - Ming Xie, University of Toronto