Heart Sutra

Heart Sutra

by Yan Lianke
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date: 14/03/2023

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The Heart Sutra is the most mysterious scripture in Chinese Buddhism. In Yan Lianke’s new novel, disciples of China’s five main religions—Buddhism, Daoism, Protestantism, Catholicism and Islam—gather for a year at the Religious Training Centre of Beijing’s National Politics University. They live together, study together, exercise together in the blazing sun, and get caught up in financial and sexual shenanigans.


Heart Sutra explores the complex relations between humans and gods, between the secular and the divine, and between genders. The youngest Daoist monk and the youngest Buddhist nun fall in love. But as their faith is tested, will they stay committed to the path of a holy life? The choices they make are confronting, because nothing less than the fate of the gods is at stake.


Illustrated with beautiful woodcuts, animated by an incisive sense of humour, and inhabited by an unforgettable cast of mortals and deities, Heart Sutra is a stunning addition to Yan Lianke’s oeuvre, which highlights the best and worst in humankind.


Yan Lianke is the author of the memoir Three Brothers and numerous novels and novellas, including Hard Like Water, The Day the Sun Died, The Explosion Chronicles, The Four Books, Lenin’s Kisses, Serve the People!, Dream of Ding Village, and The Years, Months, Days. He was awarded the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature and the Franz Kafka Prize, among many accolades. He was twice a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize, and he has been shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the Man Asian Literary Prize, and the Prix Femina Étranger. He has also received two of China’s most prestigious literary honors, the Lu Xun Prize and the Lao She Award.


Carlos Rojas has translated seven books by Yan Lianke.


‘One of those rare geniuses who finds in the peculiar absurdities of his own culture the absurdities that infect all cultures.’ Washington Post


‘Yan Lianke speaks to the agitation and absurdity of human existence, and the unquenchable need to believe in a cause greater than ourselves.’ Jessie Au, author of Cold Enough for Snow

ISBN:
9781922791368
9781922791368
Category:
Contemporary fiction
Format:
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date:
14-03-2023
Language:
English
Publisher:
The Text Publishing Company
Yan Lianke

Yan Lianke was born in 1958 in Henan Province, China. He is the author of numerous novels and short-story collections, including Serve the People!, Dream of Ding Village, Lenin's Kisses, The Four Books, The Explosion Chronicles and The Day the Sun Died.

He has been awarded the Hua Zhong World Chinese Literature Prize, the Lao She Literary Award, the Dream of the Red Chamber Award and the Franz Kafka Prize. He has also been shortlisted for the International Man Booker Prize, the Principe de Asturias Prize for Letters, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the FT/Oppenheimer Fund Emerging Voices Award and the Prix Femina tranger.

The Day the Sun Died won the Dream of the Red Chamber Award for the World's Most Distinguished Novel in Chinese. His memoir Three Brothers was published in 2020. He lives in Beijing.

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