The ancient Chinese text known as CHUANG TZU has been translated into English many times, but never with the freshness, accessibility, and accuracy of this remarkable rendering--the result of a unique collaboration between one of America's premier poet-translators and a leading Chinese scholar. At turns playful and acerbic, the book presents a philosophy of life that is politically radical and deeply spiritual.

This is Thomas Cleary's translation of two classic Chinese books describing the essential philosophy and practice of Tao, written long ago as maps of the Way: Tao Te Ching and Chuang-tzu. Cleary's bold new translations restore, as no other translations have yet done, the remarkable power and mind-opening distinctiveness of the original Chinese. Composed in China over two thousand years ago and widely regarded as classics of world literature as well...