This bold new translation by two brilliant poets offers a contemporary perspective on a timeless masterpiece of Daoist scripture, introducing the Dao De Jing to a new audience while retaining the majesty of the Chinese original. Composed of eighty-one short poems written by the sage Laozi in 400 BC, the Dao De Jing is one of the pillars of Chinese thought, the ultimate “wisdom book” with influence that has spread to the Western world. It can be read as philosophical instructions for living, equally applicable to the recluse and to the aspiring leader of nations. Acclaimed poet Li-Young Lee and poet and scholar Yun Wang illuminate the Dao De Jing as a unified work of art, with a stunning combination of fathomless depths, enlightening insight and vivid beauty. Based on extensive study of ancient Chinese language as well as contemporary scholarship on the Dao De Jing, this revelatory and faithful translation—presented alongside the original Chinese text—reveals its enduring teachings in their profound simplicity, subtlety and balance.

Li–Young Lee is a poet and translator. He received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for Lifetime Achievement, among other awards. Lee lives in Chicago. Yun Wang, a poet and cosmologist, is the author of three volumes of poetry. Raised in rural southwest China, she lives in California.