Sleepless Nights: Verses for the Wakeful

by Thomas Cleary (Translator)

Nearly 800 years ago, pagan Mongol tribes from the Central Asian steppes broke upon the ancient civiliations of Asia like a tidal wave, unleashing a whirlwind of destructive fury with unprecedented force. Through this holocaust wandered a lone buddhist poet, a pacifist and feminist, a former politcal prisoner and a lifelong exile and sojourner in his own homeland. Wen-siang's poetry caputres the pathos of his time with exquisite sensitivity and tragic beauty, illuminating its harvest of both human suffering and hope.

Sleepless Nights gives voice to a people groaning under the weight of history--the conscripts and peasants, the women and families, the refugees adrft in a land torn by conflict. Among the greatest masterpieces of secular Buddhist poetry, here translated into English for the first time , these verses mock the folly of tyrants and celebrate the indomitability of life.

Genres: Poetry

112 pages, Paperback

First published May 16, 1995

About the author

Dr. Thomas Francis Cleary, Ph.D. (East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University; J.D., Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley), was a prolific translator of Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, and Muslim classics, with a particular emphasis on popular translations of Mahāyāna works relevant to the Chan, Zen, and Soen systems.