Towers in the Void

Wai-yee Li, author of The Promise and Peril of Things: Literature and Material Culture in Late Imperial China:
In this important and absorbing study of Li Yu, Kile shows how thinking through media in its multiple forms—print culture, the sights and sounds of the theater, spatial constructs, the human body—yields fresh insights into early modern China.

Haun Saussy, author of The Making of Barbarians: Chinese Literature and Multilingual Asia:
Li Yu had a career as full of twists as his stories are. Taking media innovation as the thread that connects Li Yu’s many activities, this study opens new windows in his floating towers and adds arias to his silent operas.

Judith Zeitlin, author of The Phantom Heroine: Ghosts and Gender in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Literature:
A brilliant new conceptualization of the maverick Li Yu as entrepreneur, designer, playwright, and multimedia specialist. Kile’s daring, astute study of this most original seventeenth-century Chinese writer grabs you from page one. A true tour de force.