{"product_id":"9781784744663-heart-sutra","title":"Heart Sutra","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eMulti-prizewinning and internationally acclaimed Yan Lianke -- 'China's most controversial novelist' (\u003ci\u003eNew Yorker)\u003c\/i\u003e -- returns with a campus novel \u003ci\u003elike no other\u003c\/i\u003e following a young Buddhist as she journeys through worldly temptation\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eTo tell the truth, religious faith is really just a matter of believing stories. The world is governed by stories, and it is for the sake of stories that everyone lives on this earth.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYahui is a young Buddhist at university. But this is no ordinary university. It is populated by every faith in China: Buddhists, Daoists, Catholics, Protestants and Muslims who jostle alongside one another in the corridors of learning, and whose deities are never far from the classroom.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHer days are measured out making elaborate religious papercuts, taking part in highly charged tug-of-war competitions between the faiths and trying to resist the daily temptation to return to secular life and abandon the ascetic ideals that are her calling. Everything seems to dangle by a thread. But when she meets a Daoist student called Mingzheng, an inexorable romance of mythic proportions takes hold of her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this profoundly otherworldly novel, Chinese master Yan Lianke remakes the campus novel in typically visionary fashion, dropping readers into an allegorical world ostensibly far from our own, but which reflects our own questions and struggles right back at us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e** Beautiful edition illustrated throughout with beautiful original papercuts **\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'One of China's greatest living authors' \u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'His talent cannot be ignored'\u003ci\u003e New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'China's foremost literary satirist'\u003ci\u003e Financial Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40755432194145,"sku":"9781784744663","price":17.74,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/files\/orig_28433984.jpg?v=1722584629","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/9781784744663-heart-sutra","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}