Daodejing - Hardcover

by Laozi (Author), Brook Ziporyn (Translator)

Grounded in a lifetime of research and interpretive work and informed by careful study of recent archeological discoveries of alternate versions of the text, Brook Ziporyn, one of the preeminent explicators of Eastern religions in English, brings us a revelatory new translation--and a radical reinterpretation--of the central text of Taoist thought. Ziporyn offers an alternative to the overly comforting tone of so many translations, revealing instead the electrifying strangeness and explosively unsettling philosophical implications of this famously ambiguous work. In Ziporyn's hands, this is no mere "wisdom book" of anodyne affirmations or mildly diverting brain-teasers--this pathbreaking Daodejing will forever change how the text is read and understood in the West.

Back Jacket

The Daodejing is a philosophy that speaks to times of peace and catastrophe, to the center and the margins, to those who feel at the height of life and those who feel trapped beneath?its weight. It is a challenging, alarming, and profoundly moving text.?Every part of this translation by Brook Ziporyn?is exceptional--illuminating for those encountering the Daodejing for the first time and for those who know the text in multiple forms and languages. A revelatory translation of a revelatory work.
--Madeleine Thien, author of Do Not Say We Have Nothing