Unable to be published in his native China, Yan Lianke’s latest novel is a wryly humorous and deeply moving story of modernity, tradition, and the struggle for expression. 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 an uneasy acquaintance that might bloom into something more.

Meanwhile, the worldly Director Gong has a project of his 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 her beloved mentor collapsed after witnessing one of these competitions. In addition to his studies, Gu Mingzheng is also intent on discovering the identity of his unknown father. As the two young disciples grow closer and fall in love, it soon becomes clear that corruption is seeping ever more deeply into the foundation of the institute under Director Gong’s watch. 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 together 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.

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