Iñaki Preciado

Lie Zie

Original title:

Lie zi. El libro de la perfecta vacuidad

About the book:

Lie Zi

The book of the perfect void known in China as the Lie Zi (the name of the legendary master to whom the work is attributed) is one of the three classics of philosophical Taoism, alongside the Book of the Tao, or Tao Te King and the Zhuang Zi.  While it is perhaps the least known of the three, it represents essential reading and not only for anyone who aspires to know more about the fascinating world of Taoist thought – see for example the chapter entitled "Yang Zhu", which covers a very particular part of aspect of primitive Taoism, distorted or debated  in latter centuries. It is valuable, too, in providing a minimum background of information for the interested student on the stories and tales that in China abound on every side in the popular oral tradition as well as in ancient and modern literary – so much so that it merited the attention of Mao Tse Tung himself, one of whose most popular  works, The old fool who moved mountains, is clearly and directly inspired by a story that appears in the Lie Zi.

About the author:

Iñaki Preciado (Madrid 1941) is one of the most accomplished translators  from Chinese to the Spanish language, as accredited by his gaining the National Translation Award (1979) for his version of the classical Tao Te King; for years he has been the official translator at the Spanish Embassy in Peking. He translated the Zhuang Zi , which also appears in this collection.