Full Description
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.
Contents
Translator's Introduction
1. Origins of this Book
2. The Iron Hawks of Xixia
3. The Barbarian Hag
4. Stealing Crops
5. The Technique of Execution in Nightmares
6. Origin of the Flying Thief
7. The Old Mountain Beyond the Horizon
8. The Angry Ravens
9. The Monk Who Went on a Pilgrimage
10. The Black Dragon Demons
11. The Crunching of Fava Beans in the Dead of Night
12. The Crime
13. The "Buddhist Head Shaving Ritual" in Nightmares
14. Monk Wu's Sheep Hearts
15. The Captured Flying Thief
16. The Dharma-Protecting Divine Bullock
17. The "Gonpo" in Nightmares
18. The Old Mountain
19. The "Nirvana" of Nightmares
20. The Pilgrimage
21. Chicken Feather Notices
22. The Vanished Water of Xixia
23. The Broken Shoes on the Monastery Gate
24. The Wooden Donkeys of Diamond Clan
25. The Butcher's Heart
26. The Fifth "Nightmare": The Curse of Ajia
27. Another Way Snow Feather or Her Mother Died
28. The Leather for Ritual Implements
29. The Monk Who Broke His Vow
30. Cave of the Red Bats
31. Cripple Big Walking the Leather
32. The Sunshine of Early Winter
33. The Bodhisattva
34. Issuer of the Curse
35. Searching for One's Origin, or a Prophecy
36. The Destined Illusory Bliss
37. The Soul's Progress
38. A Ritual from Antiquity
39. Coda
Postface: "Shattering" and "Transcendence"
