Dao De Jing
About this eBook
This bold new translation by two brilliant poets offers a contemporary perspective on a timeless masterpiece of Daoist scripture, introducing Dao De Jing to a new audience while retaining the majesty of the Chinese original. Composed of eighty-one short poems written by the sage Laozi in 400 BC, Dao De Jing is one of the pillars of Chinese thought. Acclaimed poet Li-Young Lee and poet and scholar Yun Wang illuminate Dao De Jing as a unified work of art. This revelatory and faithful translation—presented alongside the original Chinese text—reveals its enduring teachings in their profound simplicity, subtlety, and balance.
About the author
Li-Young Lee is a poet and translator. Lee’s honors include a Lannan Literary Award, Whiting Award, PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award, I. B. Lavan Award, three Pushcart Prizes, a William Carlos Williams award, fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Academy of American Poets, and many others. He received the 2024 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for Lifetime Achievement. Lee lives in Chicago.
Yun Wang, a poet and cosmologist, is the author of three volumes of poetry, most recently The Book of Mirrors, as well as translations of classical Chinese poetry. Raised in rural southwest China, she lives in California.
