The Journey to the West: In Easy Chinese, Pinyin and English

Sun Wukong is one of the most famous characters in Chinese literature and culture. His legendary bravery, his foolish mistakes, his sharp-tongued commentary and his yearning for immortality and spiritual knowledge have inspired hundreds of books, television shows, graphic novels, video games and films.

The full story of Sun Wukong's adventures is told in Journey to the West, an epic 2,000-page novel written in the 16th century by Wu Cheng'en. Journey to the West is probably the most famous and best-loved novel in China and is considered one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature. Its place in Chinese literature is roughly comparable to Homer's epic poem The Odyssey in Western literature. Wikipedia sums up the book's role perfectly, saying, "Enduringly popular, the tale is at once a comic adventure story, a humorous satire of Chinese bureaucracy, a spring of spiritual insight, and an extended allegory in which the group of pilgrims journeys towards enlightenment by the power and virtue of cooperation."

Journey to the West is the ultimate tale of adventure, magic, and myth. It is probably the most famous and best-loved novel in China and is considered one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature. The original Chinese novel written by Wu Chen'en in the 16th century is over a half million Chinese characters long, and a direct English translation runs over 2,000 pages and has a very large vocabulary.

This book is not a literal translation of the original novel. Rather, it's a retelling of the story in easy-to-read Simplified Chinese. Unlike other full-text translations, this is written using a restricted vocabulary, simpler sentence structure, and fewer proper nouns. The chapters start off quite easy and gradually increase in complexity. The authors have made every effort to remain faithful to the original while retelling it in simple language. The book also contains full Pinyin (phonetic spelling) and English versions, and a complete glossary of all Chinese words used. A high quality audiobook version is available on Audible, and standard-quality versions are available on YouTube and the Imagin8 Press website.

This edition is a beautiful "coffee table" style hardback book. It's 8.5" x 11", 7 and weighs well over 5 pounds. You can see some pictures of the book's interior here:

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