A Concise History of Chinese Literature consists of ten chapters, each of which represents a historical period from the origins of writing in the Pre-Qin era to the present day, from "Guan Ju" of the three-thousand-year-old C/assic of Poetry to the author Mo Yan, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2012. Taking on the vastness of Chinese literature in this one short volume, we have had no choice but to overlook many excellent works of literature in favor of the most representative authors and works. We hope that from these carefully chosen texts you will be able to discover the brevity, elegance, and charm of literature in Chinese, and that these short writings will help you take the first steps to understanding how Chinese people express their emotions and thoughts through literature.