Xue Mo – författare

Reality merges with illusion in this novel of northwestern China.Winner of the 2024 New York City Big Book Award in the World Literature category Finalist for the 2023 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award in the Multicultural Fiction category Xue Mo's novel Curses of the Kingdom of Xixia presents a rich tapestry of the history, religion, lore, and customs of a region in present-day northwestern China. During its heyday, the Sino-Tibetan kingdom of Xixia (pronounced see-sia; 1038–1227), also known as the Tanguts, rivaled the Song dynasty (960–1279) of China and boasted a cavalry so formidable that the Chinese paid tribute to it to maintain peace. Using the discovery of "lost" manuscripts as a frame, the novel presents historical events and tales of semifictional characters, including the avatar of a local Tantric Buddhist goddess, a Dakini/Vajrayogini named Snow Feather. Taking the readers through different historical times and the various geographical and cultural spaces of the region, Xue Mo reveals truths by blurring the distinction between good and evil, beauty and hideousness, reality and fiction, permanence and impermanence. Magical realism and mimesis coexist. Reality merges with illusion, the mundane with the supernatural.

Co-translated by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin, acclaimed translators of Nobel Prize-winning authors. #1 Amazon Best Seller in Asian Literature. The original work was shortlisted for the Mao Dun Literature Award and was adapted into a 20-episode TV series. Desert Rites introduces readers to a remote village, capturing the intricate lives of its inhabitants with psychological depth and vivid realism. Celebrated across China and adapted into the acclaimed TV series Desert Ties, this novel stands as a cornerstone of contemporary Chinese literature, translated by Nobel-Prize-winning translators Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin.