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Published 14 March 2023
ISBN 9781922790132
Format Trade Paperback
Extent 416pp
AU Price $32.99
NZ Price $38.00

Heart Sutra



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The five major religions collide in an exploration of spirituality and gender fluidity in a novel imbued with celebrated Chinese author Yan Lianke’s distinctive wit and humour

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.

Published 14 March 2023
ISBN 9781922790132
Format Trade Paperback
Extent 416pp
AU Price $32.99
NZ Price $38.00

About the author

Yan Lianke

Yan Lianke has been called a 'master of imaginative satire' and named 'one of China's most successful fiction writers' by the New York Times. His satirical stories with often sensitive subjects have led to the banning of some of his works, including his novellaServe the People and the novel Dream of Ding Village. Yan's surrealist writing oscillates between military themes and the Chinese countryside, which lend the often absurdly miserable living conditions of rural life an equally surreal setting.

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