Originally Posted by
JBI
In concept - but it isn't the "best 100" authors list, but the "highest voted" 100 authors list. In reality, I suspect few people have heard of Luo Guanzhong, let alone gotten through the whole Romance of the Three Kingdoms, much less Ba Jin - as far as I know, too, there aren't many widely available translations of Dream of Red Mansions - the translation I got was a moderate propaganda version from the 70s put out by the Chinese institutions, with at least a half dozen quotes by Chairman Mao, who was still living then I believe, in the introduction, and not to mention all the names in Wade-Gilles, which made them impossible to remember. Strangely enough though, the translators, Gladys and Yang Xianyi, who are supposedly noteworthy translators. Penguin supposedly put out a copy in the 90s, but it's only 300 pages!
That is, of course, no excuse to exclude Li Bei, or Su Shi, or even the most important, Confucius, yet I think few here really know much about non-English literature, with the exception of a few Russian classics, and perhaps a couple German and French titles thrown in for good measure.