Heart Sutra
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
From “China’s foremost literary satirist” (Financial Times) comes a captivating new novel set at a religious training center in Beijing, focusing on the unlikely love story of a Buddhist nun and a Daoist priest
At the Religious Training Center on the campus of Beijing’s National Politics University, disciples of China’s five main religions—Buddhism, Daoism, Protestantism, Catholicism, and Islam—gather for a year of intensive study and training. In this hallowed yet jovial atmosphere, the institute’s two youngest disciples—Yahui, a Buddhist jade nun, and Gu Mingzheng, a Daoist master—fall into a fast friendship that might bloom into something more.
This year, however, the worldly Director Gong has an exciting new plan: he has organized tug-of-war competitions between the religions. The fervor of competition offers excitement for the disciples, as well as a lucrative source of fundraising, but Yahui looks on the games with distrust: her beloved mentor collapsed after witnessing one of these competitions. Gu Mingzheng, meanwhile, has his own mission at the institute, centering on his search for his unknown father. Soon it becomes clear that corruption is seeping ever more deeply into the foundation of the institute under Director Gong’s watch, and Yahui and Gu Mingzheng will be forced to ask themselves whether it is better to stay committed to an increasingly fraught faith or to return to secular life forever—and nothing less than the fate of the gods itself is at stake.
Illustrated throughout with beautiful original papercuts, animated by Yan Lianke’s characteristically incisive sense of humor, Heart Sutra is a stunning and timely novel that highlights the best and worst in mankind and interrogates the costs of division.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This intriguing satire from Yan (Hard Like Water) unfolds during a conference involving members of China's five major religions: Buddhism, Daoism, Protestantism, Catholicism, and Islam. Yahui, a young Buddhist jade nun, attends a one-year program at a government-sponsored religious training center in Beijing, where the director, Gong, hopes to write a book on the relationships and contradictions among the various belief systems. Gong arranges tug-of-war competitions between groups and works with a figure known as Nameless to blackmail donors to raise money for the training center. Yahui is on campus to assist her mentor, Jueyu, but after Jueyu suffers a stroke while witnessing a tug-of-war match, Yahui takes her place. Soon, she meets Daoist master Gu Mingzheng, who is searching for his birth father, and the duo form a bond that turns romantic. After Yahui's convent collapses, she sets her sights on buying an apartment in the city, and she and Mingzheng, whose parental search is one of perpetual disappointment, consider starting a secular life together. While Yan's similes are dubious and awkwardly translated ("the sky was as dark as though it were covered in a black cloth"), his barbs against organized religion frequently hit their targets (a Christian claims the Communist Party as one of Jesus's disciples). Despite the rough spots, there is plenty to admire.
