Cuentos fantásticos chinos

Within the very long tradition of Chinese short stories, the current of the "extraordinary story" has its origins, at least, in the 4th century BC. C., since which time it has been cultivated with extreme wealth. Trying to describe in a short space its extension and diversity would not only be impossible due to the many stories that are grouped under this label, but also due to the multifaceted nature of its irradiations to other spheres of Chinese culture and other countries, from painting, opera or architecture to the great long novels of the Ming and Ching dynasties, the martial arts novel, cinema and the horror novel, poetry or music. This anthology covers from those first dawns until the 18th century, when the great master of the genre appears: Yuan Mei (1716-1797), so it will serve the reader, in addition to as a gateway to Chinese fantastic narrative, as a sample of the vast and detailed sociological, religious and ethnographic information it contains.