Winter Light
Five essays on old age as its own time of life, told through Titian, Beethoven, Cézanne and others.
Writer, librettist, translator
Douglas J. Penick
has spent a working life carrying old stories across borders: from the Museum of Modern Art in New York, through years of Buddhist study and teaching, to opera houses, film, novels, translations, and now essays on what the late years of a life can reveal.
Without light,
The black night sky
Dreams.Thus we know
And speak with the living and the dead,
Held in their hidden love
New in 2025
Winter Light
On Late Life's Radiance
Five essays on old age as its own time of life, told through Titian, Beethoven, Cézanne and others.
In the contemporary West, the elderly are regarded as somehow "other," no longer who they used to be, no longer full members of the worlds they once inhabited. Being old is seen as a medical management issue. But old age is not a defective version of what preceded it; it is, like childhood, adolescence, and middle age, its own time…
The library
Every work, newest first. See them on a timeline.
The Oceans of Cruelty
Twenty-five tales from India, retold: a young king, a corpse-spirit and the dark power of stories.
The Age of Waiting
Heart traces and song lines for an age that waits: hints and promptings toward other ways of seeing.
The Warrior Song of King Gesar
The saga of Gesar, King of Ling, from the hardships of his youth to his great battles against the enemies of the four directions.
Buy on Amazon: The Warrior Song of King Gesar (opens Amazon)
Crossings on a Bridge of Light
Gesar rides through the realms of life and death to free his mother, and sees the rulers of Shambhala.
Buy on Amazon: Crossings on a Bridge of Light (opens Amazon)
The Brilliance of Naked Mind
Secret visions, songs and prayers from the Gesar epic, and an account of the rulers of Shambhala.
Journey of the North Star
A eunuch at the court of the Yongle Emperor tells of a China remade as a world power.
The Prince's Tomb
Fragments, verses and riddles invoking Prince Shōtoku, the visionary regent of early Japan.
Dreamers and Their Shadows
Two forged scrolls, a fifteenth-century teacher, and the American assistant drawn into their world.
The Wanderer
Eleven poems, prose and hybrid pieces on movement, chance encounters, tales and songs.
A Terrace in Rome
Translator
Pascal Quignard's novel of a seventeenth-century engraver, in its first English translation.
De krijgsliederen van koning Gesar
The Dutch edition of The Warrior Song of King Gesar (Asoka, 2016).
Buy on Amazon: De krijgsliederen van koning Gesar (opens Amazon)
Gesar de Ling
French pocket edition of the Gesar cycle (Points Sagesses, 2008).
Gesar de Ling
French edition of The Warrior Song of King Gesar (Guy Trédaniel, 2003).
Ashoka's Dream
Librettist
The libretto of Peter Lieberson's opera on the Emperor Ashoka, premiered at the Santa Fe Opera.
King Gesar
Librettist / text
Peter Lieberson's King Gesar on Sony Classical, with Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax and Peter Serkin.
In Tricycle
His essays in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, on old age, pain, memory and the sages; the list follows the magazine.
On the Seawall
An essay on Frank Rosenblatt, an essay on Froberger, and a poem, in Ron Slate's On the Seawall.
Read: Frank Rosenblatt in Passing: The Rebirth of the Mimetic Impulse
Nothing in this strand yet.
Readers and critics
a haunting and deeply personal meditation on aging and mortality
a very brave and wise book
an indispensable contribution to the conversation we all need to have in an aging society
Imagine One Thousand and One Nights, as told … by a vetala
an elegant retelling of the Vetala Panchavimshati
These ancient fables skim the surface of characters and places, blurring into one another
will rouse unconditional confidence throughout the world
not a ‘re-telling’ of the Gesar saga, but an authentic continuation of that tradition
a new kind of metaphoric history
entices the reader into rich new worlds of understanding and enjoyment