An Epic Retelling of the Great Chinese Novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms: 110 Free Episodes and Counting

in Literature, Podcasts | April 8th, 2017 1 Comment

Romance of the Three King­doms is con­sid­ered one of the Four Great Clas­si­cal Nov­els of Chi­nese lit­er­a­ture, and its lit­er­ary influ­ence in East Asia rivals that of Shake­speare in the Eng­lish speak­ing world. “Writ­ten 600 years ago,” writes the BBC, “it is an his­tor­i­cal nov­el that tells the sto­ry of a tumul­tuous peri­od in Chi­nese his­to­ry, the 2nd and 3rd cen­turies AD. Part­ly his­tor­i­cal and part­ly leg­end, it recounts the fight­ing and schem­ing of the feu­dal lords and the three states which came to pow­er as the Han Dynasty col­lapsed.”

And now the ancient meets the mod­ern…

If you lis­ten to the Romance of the Three King­doms pod­cast, you can hear John Zhu’s attempt to retell this epic tale and make it acces­si­ble to a West­ern audi­ence. The first 110 episodes are avail­able on YouTube, the web, and iTunes–with at least anoth­er 10 to come. Quite a feat. Have a lis­ten.

To learn more about Romance of the Three King­doms, lis­ten to this episode of the BBC’s In Our Time.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

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