The New Adventures of the Monkey King

«The New Adventures of the Monkey King» — one of the most interesting and original works of its genre in Ancient China. At first glance, it is a sequel to the famous classical epic by Wu Cheng'en, but in essence, Dong Yue, who lived during another era of change — when the Ming dynasty fell under the pressure of the Manchus — created a deeply innovative work: an aphoristic allegorical novel, a parable novel. Publishing his small book in 1641, Dong Yue modestly titled it: «Supplement to „Journey to the West“». Such a method of «supplementing», or rather, reinterpreting literary monuments, allowed the author to create a distance of ironic detachment, giving the work a new quality. Being both a mirror of classical tradition and its transitional time, Dong Yue's novel pays tribute to ideals sanctified by centuries — and reveals their limitations, ridiculing and pushing them to the absurd. And who better to handle such a task than the trickster hero, the inexhaustible rebel Sun Wukong? And the Monkey King embarks on a strange mystical journey — to the World of the Future, through hell and paradise and the thickets of the human soul.
In the design of the publication, engravings by artists of the Hokusai school were used — Ohara Toya, Utagawa Toyohiro, Katsushika Hokusai II, and others.