Four Huts: Asian Writings on the Simple Life

by Burton Watson (Translator), Stephen Addiss (Illustrator)

Overview

The short works collected in Four Huts give voice to one of the most treasured aesthetic and spiritual ideals of Asia—that of a simple life lived in a simple dwelling. The texts were written between the ninth and the seventeenth centuries and convey each author's underlying sense of the world and what is to be valued in it. Four Huts presents original translations by Burton Watson—one of the most respected translators of Chinese and Japanese literature. The qualities that emerge from these writings are an awareness of impermanence, love of nature, fondness for poetry and music, and an appreciation of the quiet life. Four Huts features eleven brush paintings by artist Stephen Addiss.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781570629464
Publisher:	Shambhala
Publication date:	07/16/2002
Pages:	112
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.48(h) x 0.27(d)

About the Author

Burton Watson (1925–2017) taught Chinese and Japanese literature at Columbia, Stanford, and Kyoto universities. He translated many books from Chinese and Japanese, and was one of the most well-known and respected translators in his field.

He received the Gold Medal Award of the Translation Center at Columbia University in 1979, the PEN Translation Prize in both 1982 and 1995. In 2015, he received the prestigious PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation. He died in 2017 in Chiba Prefecture, Japan.

Stephen Addiss, PhD, is Professor of Art at the University of Richmond in Virginia. A scholar-artist, he has exhibited his ink paintings and calligraphy in Asia, Europe, and the United States. He is also the author or coauthor of more than thirty books and catalogues about East Asian arts, including The Sound of One Hand: The Paintings and Calligraphy of Zen Master Hakuin.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	ix
	Translator's Preface	xi
	Record of the Thatched Hall on Mount Lu	1
	Record of the Pond Pavilion	19
	Record of the Ten-Foot-Square Hut	39
	Record of the Hut of the Phantom Dwelling	85

Editorial Reviews

"This beautifully rendered, expertly designed, small pocket volume is a compact little world in itself, just waiting to be opened."— The Japan Times

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