Ssu-ma Ch'ien Author

Ssu-ma Ch'ien (145-ca. 86 B.C.), China's greatest historian and an important official in the Han dynasty, compiled the history of his culture from its beginnings through the end of the second century B.C.

William H. Nienhauser, Jr., editor and co-translator, is Halls-Bascom Professor of Classical Chinese Literature at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 1979 he helped found the journal Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR) and has edited it since. He has published a number of articles and books on traditional Chinese literature, including The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature (two volumes, Indiana University Press, 1985; 1998)