Sleepless Nights: Verses for the Wakeful

Nearly 800 years ago, pagan Mongol tribes from the Central Asian steppes broke upon the ancient civiliations of Asia like a tidal wave, unleashing a whirlwind of destructive fury with unprecedented force. Through this holocaust wandered a lone buddhist poet, a pacifist and feminist, a former politcal prisoner and a lifelong exile and sojourner in his own homeland. Wen-siang's poetry caputres the pathos of his time with exquisite sensitivity and tragic beauty, illuminating its harvest of both human suffering and hope. Sleepless Nights gives voice to a people groaning under the weight of history--the conscripts and peasants, the women and families, the refugees adrft in a land torn by conflict. Among the greatest masterpieces of secular Buddhist poetry, here translated into English for the first time , these verses mock the folly of tyrants and celebrate the indomitability of life.