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Oracle Bone

Lydia Kwa

$24.99

Paperback

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English
Arsenal Pulp Press
01 April 2018
Life in seventh-century China teems withmagic, fox spirits, and demons; there is a fervent belief that theextraordinary resides within the lives of both commoners and royalty. Duringthe years when the empress Wu Zhao gains ascendancy in the Tang court, herevil-minded lover Xie becomes obsessed with finding and possessing the oraclebone, a magical object that will bestow immortal powers on him. Standing in hisway is Qilan, an eccentric Daoist nun who rescues an orphaned girl named Lingfrom being sold into slavery; Qilan takes her under her wing, promising totrain her so she may avenge her parents' murders. In another part of the city, ayoung monk named Harelip questions his faith and his attraction to other men ashe helps the elder monk Xuanzang to complete his translation of the Heart Sutra, the sacred Buddhistscripture. Meanwhile, as the mysteries and powers of the missing oracle boneare revealed, it remains to be seen whether Qilan will be able to stop Xie fromgaining possession of the magical bone, and at what cost.

 This extraordinary magic-realistnovel by Singapore-born author Lydia Kwa employs and subverts traditionaltropes of Chinese mythology to tell a tale of greed, faith, and femaleempowerment with a wickedly modern sensibility. 
By:  
Imprint:   Arsenal Pulp Press
Country of Publication:   Canada
Dimensions:   Height: 228mm,  Width: 152mm,  Spine: 18mm
Weight:   318g
ISBN:   9781551526997
ISBN 10:   1551526999
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Lydia Kwa: Lydia Kwa is a writer and psychologist. She is the author of the novels This Place Called Absence (Amazon/Books in Canada First Novel Award finalist), The Walking Boy (Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize finalist), and Pulse, as well as two books of poetry, The Colours of Heroines and sinuous.

Reviews for Oracle Bone

A beautiful and moving dream of old Chang'an, deliciously and fully conceived. Wide-awake to Chinese imperial history, traditional storytelling, kung-fu movies, and TCM, this novel is a must-read from a brilliant contemporary novelist. --Larissa Lai, author of When Fox is a Thousand and Salt Fish Girl In Oracle Bone, Lydia Kwa creates a transfixing narrative that bears the intimate familiarity of a dream with the grandeur of a historical epic. Her prose has the precision of fine embroidery, honing in on small moments and making delicate connections to deliver a wondrous world where magic is possible. --Doretta Lau, author of How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun? Collating a narrative of love, magic, power, and tradition Kwa performs an oracular story divining her way through a supernatural world of hybrid animas and shapeshifters to reveal adjacent truths of consciousness we usually only intuit. Oracle Bone is a poignant reminder that the imagination is real and its stories are crucial to an understanding of how we desire our world. --Fred Wah, Canada's former Parliamentary Poet Laureate


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