Best chinese literary criticism books according to redditors

Lydia Liu wrote a book called "Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity-China, 1900-1937" (link below) that discusses the purposeful mistranslation of the Chinese character "yi" by the British. "Yi" refers to outsiders or foreigners, and can be used in a derogatory way to mean "barbarian". Many non-Chinese cultures were referred to as "yi", usually with descriptors, like "The Barbarians of the East", or "The Large Eyed Barbarians". Liu theorizes that the British purposefully translated "yi" as barbarian in order to take offense, and use that offense as a justification for the various invasions/political machinations that Britain perpetrated in China, particularly in the Opium War period.

(Link to the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Translingual-Practice-Literature-Translated-Modernity-China/dp/0804725357/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373953389&sr=1-2)

The Teachings of Lin-chi

Instantaneous Awakening

Book of Serenity

我以前用那本书学文言文
https://www.amazon.com/Du-Handbook-Classical-Chinese-Grammar/dp/1904623743

Haha, even if it would be lying to say that there's an endless supply of material, there should still be plenty to read even without the government stuff. Here are a few titles that are easily available.

^(And you got me curious there, what is this 100-200 speakers language? :-))

Diaries

• Di Cosmo, Diary of a Manchu Soldier
  
• 闲窗录梦, diary of a Manchu bannerman in Beijing during the first half of the 19th c., very everyday life (walks, visits to friends and temples, shopping, meals, events in the neighborhood, etc)
  
  Supernatural
  
• Liyoo jai j'i i, a 1848 translation of 128 stories from Pu Songling's Strange Tales
  
• Donjina, more "strange tales". You can read The Righteous Elephants and The Injustice of the Silk Thread in transliteration and translation on the MSG website
  
• Nišan saman, facsimile and transliteration of one version of the tale here
  
• Sidi Kur
  
  Science
  
• an anatomical treaty in Manchu (with illustrations), based on a European work, translated in Manchu by a Jesuit missionary; a more complete copy can be found here (click on "Voir le document") but it is not downloadable
  
• a forensic science treaty
  
• two medical works at the BNF
  
• maths in Manchu
  
  Children books
  Check this page for the 1992 and 2006 editions of 锡伯文小学语文, these are the language textbooks used in Sibe primary schools. They start with the alphabet and then move on to short texts.
  

Huangbo:
1
2

Linji: 1 (this is the copy that I have, after discussing it here it sounded better) 2

Bankei: 1 2

etc.

Edit: My university professor translated the xinxinming (based off of lok to's translation) and chunks of the platform sutra (original work i believe), and i've got a copy of that. he suggests for further reading on the platform sutra to read 1 2 3 (as well as zen doctrine of no mind! ha!)

If you have time to get it and read it before the lesson, try Ezra Pound's The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry. He basically uses Chinese writing as a basis for Imagism, which was a crucial form for many Modernists, including himself, William Carlos Williams, Amy Lowell, etc.

In the 1920s & '30s, Imagism via Chinese writing was a hip way of writing. I imagine it would be interesting to the students that their language was tapped by American poets.

I ended up getting this one Amazon.com: Tao Te Ching a Bilingual Edition by D.C. Lau and it's really everything I could hope for.

It consists of two parts, the first has the "Wang Pi" version of the Tao Te Ching, which is the most well known, with for each verse the Chinese version and English Translation.

The second part is based on scrolls that were found more recently but that are some of the oldest versions of the Tao Te Ching that are known, also bilingual. There's also a great general introduction.