Author(s): Laszlo Krasznahorkai ; Ottilie Mulzet (TRN)

Literature

Description: Known for his brilliantly dark fictional visions, Laszlo Krasznahorkai is one of the most respected European writers of his generation and the winner of the 2015 Man Booker International Prize. Here, he brings us on a journey through China at the dawn of the new millennium. On the precipice of its emergence as a global power, China is experiencing cataclysms of modernity as its harsh Maoist strictures meet the chaotic flux of globalism. What remains of the Middle Kingdom's ancient cultural riches? And can a Westerner truly understand China's past and present--or the murky waters where the two meet? Destruction and Sorrow beneath the Heavens is both a travel memoir and the chronicle of a distinct intellectual shift as one of the most captivating contemporary writers and thinkers begins to engage with the cultures of Asia and the legacies of its interactions with Europe in a newly globalized society. Rendered in English by award-winning translator Ottilie Mulzet, Destruction and Sorrow beneath the Heavens is an important work, marking the emergence of Krasznahorkai as a truly global novelist.

Review: "The narrator travels through modern 'global', yet somehow still Maoist, China, trying to reach the past, trying to see what remains of the Middle Kingdom's ancient cultural riches, and trying to reach the city of Jiuhuashan (always asking: 'This still isn't Jiuhuashan, is it?'). But the last thing Krasznahorkai is ever going to offer us is false hope or neat resolutions."--Epler, Barbara "TANK Magazine "

Author Biography: Laszlo Krasznahorkai is a celebrated Hungarian novelist and winner of the 2015 Man Booker International Prize. His works include Satantango and Seibo There Below. Ottilie Mulzet is a literary critic and award-winning Hungarian translator.