"the moment unveiled something unwilling to die / And I had what I most desired"

[larryhammer]

A question in the All Knowledge Is Contained On The Internet Somewhere Department:

Is there an equivalent to Lafcadio Hearn for China?

(Bonus points if they are as good a writer as Hearn.)

---L.

Subject quote from "The Ash Grove," Edward Thomas.

Comments

[movingfinger]

Try Joseph Needham, subject of a book by Simon Winchester, The Man Who Loved China. That may give you a lead to someone 19c or earlier, if that's what you really want. Winchester is a popular writer and not a scholarly one, caveat lector, but may have leads to earlier writers.

[larryhammer]

Needham is a possibility. I've read another of Winchester's books -- looks worth checking that one out.

[sovay]

Is there an equivalent to Lafcadio Hearn for China?

In the sense of being a folklorist?

[larryhammer]

In the sense of being an Westerner writing sympathetically about, and as close to within as possible, the place. Could be folklore, daily life, culture, history, literature, whatever.