# The Magpie at Night

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/li-qingzhao/the-magpie-at-night/9780241774076

![The Magpie at Night](https://quivercdn.com/covers/penguin-classics/li-qingzhao/the-magpie-at-night_978-02-4177-407-6.jpg?v=2026-04-25%2010%3A38%3A59)

- Book: [The Magpie at Night](https://www.bookquiver.com/li-qingzhao/the-magpie-at-night) ([The Magpie at Night.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/li-qingzhao/the-magpie-at-night.md))
- Authors: [Li Qingzhao](https://www.bookquiver.com/li-qingzhao)
- Publisher: penguin_classics
- ISBN: 978-02-4177-407-6
- Pages: 160
- Published: 2025-09-11
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: Softcover

## Description

Li Qingzhao is justly celebrated for her place in Chinese literary history. She was a poet with a wry, unsentimental style and a rich sense of melody. Her ci – lyrics that were originally set to music – are glorious in their depth and genius, spare and arresting on the line. They evoke with rare immediacy the haunting beauty of country life during the Song dynasty; the unseen, restive labour of the poet; and Li Qingzhao’s bracing take on what it means to create art as a woman in the shadow of exile, war, imprisonment, and an unwelcoming literary establishment. In Wendy Chen’s splendid new translation, each poem is as sharp and fresh as the edge of a new spring leaf. These richly textured bolts of melody are masterpieces of verse, as resonant and bracing today as they were in the eleventh century; and they underscore Li Qingzhao status as a necessary and iconic literary figure.