The Cloud Dream of the Nine

The Cloud Dream of the Nine, also translated as The Nine Cloud Dream (Korean: 구운몽; Hanja: 九雲夢; RR: Kuunmong), is a 17th-century Korean novel set in the Chinese Tang dynasty. Although widely attributed to Kim Man-jung, there have been some arguments about whether he was the original author. However, as both a Hanmun and fantasy novel, it was not something a Korean scholar of the 17th century would own up to writing. The consensus of the Korean scholarly community is that Kim Man-jung was the author. It has been called "one of the most beloved masterpieces in Korean literature." It was the first literary work from Korea to be translated into English, by James Scarth Gale in 1922. Richard Rutt's translation entitled A Nine Cloud Dream appeared in 1974. In 2019, Heinz Insu Fenkl published a new translation entitled The Nine Cloud Dream including his lengthy introduction with Penguin Classics which was hailed by The New York Times as one of the most anticipated books of 2019. The Cloud Dream of the Nine is written by a scholar well versed in Classical Chinese literature and expresses Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist concepts, and could be called a Buddhist romance. The oldest existing text of the book was written in Classical Chinese.

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