Siddhartha Reborn

When archaeologists uncover an ancient urn inscribed, "Herein lie the ashes of the Blessed Buddha," they discover something impossible: preserved genetic material. In secret, scientists clone the Buddha, hoping his return will bring wisdom to a civilisation collapsing into ecological ruin and the Final War.

Raised in a hidden monastery, Siddhartha is trained in every major school of Buddhist philosophy and meditation - but never told who he is. At thirty-five, the age of the historic Buddha's awakening, his lineage is revealed to the world. Billions look to him for salvation.

Yet Siddhartha does not feel enlightened. He is only a man, burdened by a life written for him before his birth. In despair, he begins speaking with Friedrich, an artificial intelligence trained on the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. Their fierce but strangely intimate conversations challenge Siddhartha to abandon the role of manufactured saviour and embrace the terrifying freedom of giving birth to oneself.  

This is a sweeping philosophical novel about two ghosts speaking across a machine: one born from the memory of the Buddha, the other from the writings of Nietzsche. Between them stood Siddhartha reborn, who was neither ghost nor doctrine, but human - painfully, magnificently human. What follows is a journey through poverty, art, politics, ambition, ecology, and spirituality, as Siddhartha struggles to reconcile hopes for Buddhist liberation with the burden of Nietzschean self-creation.