Han Xin?s Challenge : A Tale of the Founding of the Western Han. Este artículo no está disponible.Han Xin?s Challenge : A Tale of the Founding of the Western Han

The death of China’s first emperor in 210 BCE initiated a brutal power struggle between Xiang Yu, Hegemon-King of Western Chu, and Liu Bang, later founder of the Han dynasty; the lowly Han Xin also strove for advancement. For over 2,000 years, the resulting story has been celebrated in China. Even today its main protagonists are household names. This is an epic tale of courage and cowardice, honour and treachery, acted out by lords, officials and soldiers, mothers, wives and concubines, and has inspired great works of literature, performance and the arts. Yet only recently has this narrative been translated into English – in Western Han: A Yangzhou Storyteller’s Script by the same authors (see p. 50). To a large extent, Han Xin’s Challenge is a shortened version of Western Han, largely comprising its English translation plus explanatory text. It is more than that, however. The story has been made more accessible to the general reader without compromising the accuracy of the translation. Its text is also illuminated with artwork that brings the narrative to life and shows how embedded the tale is in Chinese culture, even today. The result is a text ideal for the teaching of Chinese history, culture and literature. But also it is a sweeping drama, a page-turner, a story that anyone can enjoy.

Vibeke Børdahl and Liangyan Ge have been described as two of the most accomplished scholars in the study of Chinese oral literature. Both have done much research on the interplay of oral and written traditions in Chinese popular literature and performance culture. Dr Vibeke Børdahl, a senior researcher at NIAS, specialises in Chinese oral literature and dialectology. Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Notre Dame, Liangyan Ge is seen as being at the forefront of current research on Chinese storytelling. His research interests also include premodern Chinese vernacular fiction. Wang Yalong is currently a doctoral student at Fudan University.