The Painful Part of Spring​: The Poetry of Li Qingzhao

A new translation of the enduring work of China's greatest woman poet, illuminating a life of extraordinary brilliance, resilience, and heartbreak. Universally acknowledged as China's greatest woman poet, Li Qingzhao was already writing breathtaking poetry by the age of fifteen. Married at eighteen, she and her husband assembled one of the era's greatest collections of historical inscriptions and ritual bronzes, only to lose everything while fleeing the Jurchen invasion of northern China. After her husband's tragic death, she remarried three years later. When her new husband discovered that nothing remained of her collection, he abused her, and she was briefly imprisoned after reporting his crimes. Heartbroken, she spent her final years in relative seclusion, avoiding even her "poetry and drinking friends." During her lifetime, her poems were anthologized in printed editions within months of their composition, and both the emperor and empress were among her admirers. Some of the most celebrated male poets of her day even boasted of writing "in the style of Li Yi'an," her literary name.