Jiankun Sun, once known as the youngest "Genius of Chinese Cultural Studies," is now a graduate student of the Institute of History, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. He excels in research on The Classic of Mountains and Seas ( Shanhaijing ) and was a first-prize winner of Fudan University's Boya Cup national essay competition for his essay on The Classic of Mountains and Seas. He lives in Shanghai. Siyu Chen , whose inspired illustrations provided the spark for this new edition, is a freelance illustrator. She graduated from Tsinghua University in Beijing with bachelor's and master's degrees, then studied illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where she received her second master's degree. Her published books include, besides Fantastic Creatures of the Mountains and Seas ( Shanhaijing ), Songs of the South ( Chu Ci ). Her illustration work has been selected for the American Illustration Archive. She lives in Germany with her husband and two children. Howard Goldblatt is a literary translator of numerous works of contemporary Chinese fiction from mainland China and Taiwan, including Nobel Prize-winner Mo Yan, five of whose works are published by Arcade ( The Garlic Ballads ; The Republic of Wine ; Big Breasts and Wide Hips ; Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out; Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh ). He has also translated works by Liu Zhenyun ( I Did Not Kill My Husband ; The Cook, the Crook, and the Real Estate Tycoon ; Remembering 1942 , which are published by Arcade), Huang Chunming ( The Taste of Apples ), and Chen Ruoxi ( The Execution of Mayor Yin ). He taught modern Chinese literature and culture for more than a quarter of a century. He lives in Lafayette, Colorado.