2020
The Lady of Linshui Pacifies Demons: A Seventeenth-Century Novel
Translated by Kristin Ingrid Fryklund, with an introduction by Mark Edward Lewis and Brigitte Baptandier
University of Washington Press, February 2021
The Lady of Linshui Pacifies Demons is a seventeenth-century novelistic account of the founding myth of the Lady of Linshui, the goddess of women, childbirth, and childhood, who is still venerated in places in Southeast Asia. The goddess’s story evolved from the life of Chen Jinggu in Ming Dynasty Hunan and has taken the form of vernacular short fiction, legends, plays, sutras, and stele inscriptions at temples where she is worshipped. This unabridged, annotated translation provides insights into late imperial Chinese religion, the lives of women in the period, and more broadly, the structure of families and local society.