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Hermits United

Liu Yiqing

Writer, statesman and patron during the Six Dynasties

Other than being a royal prince and an exemplary politician, Liu Yiqing must have been an amiable personality, for, himself a learned person, he attracted countless men of letters as retainers in his household. Together they wrote and edited books, the most enduring being the Shishuo Xinyu, a collection of character sketches of scholars and artists living between the second and fourth centuries. Terse and concise, at times with no more than a few sentences, these miraculous tales are the beginning of a novelistic genre in Chinese literature.

Photo of Liu Yiqing