Once on a Moonless Night

Meer over het boek

Beguiling and ambitious, this new novel by the author of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is a search for an ancient text and a love story. Beneath this premise lies a haunting exploration of language and identity, revealing the complex layers of history in Chinese life and politics, culminating in a Buddhist twist. Set in late 1970s Peking, a young French woman interprets for Chinese professors and Bertolucci during the filming of The Last Emperor. Following a disgruntled old professor, she learns about a text believed to be derived from Buddha's teachings, inscribed on silk centuries ago in a now-dead language called Tumchooq—coincidentally the name of a young Chinese man she has just met. The text's beauty makes accurate translation nearly impossible. Puyi, the last emperor and the last owner of this relic, allegedly tore the silk in two while being flown to Manchuria by the Japanese, discarding the fragments from the plane. Only half of the manuscript was recovered, and the reader, like the narrator, must wait until the end to uncover the rest. When the complete text is finally revealed, its message is devastatingly simple, made all the more poignant by the sacrifices required to decipher it. This brilliant novel weaves ancient texts, fables, and a young man's quest for his father's legacy, capturing nearly a century of China's history with the modernity and tenderness reminiscent of Lost in Translation.