A Mountain to the North, A Lake to The South, Paths to the West, A River to the East

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The grandson of Prince Genji lives outside of space and time and wanders the grounds of an old monastery in Kyoto. The monastery, too, is timeless, with barely a trace of any human presence. The wanderer is searching for a garden that has long captivated him.
This novel by International Booker Prize winner Lszl Krasznahorkai - perhaps his most serene and poetic work - describes a search for the unobtainable and the riches to be discovered along the way. Despite difficulties in finding the garden, the reader is closely introduced to the construction processes of the monastery as well as the geological and biological processes of the surrounding area, making this an unforgettable meditation on nature, life, history and being.

Reviews

'Krasznahorkai throws down a challenge: raise your game or get your coat... the intensity of his commitment to the art of fiction is indisputable...exhilarating, even euphoric.' - Hari Kunzru

'Lszl Krasznahorkai writes prose of breathtaking energy and beauty ... He has elevated the novel form and is to be ranked among the great European novelists' - Colm Toibin

'The universality of Krasznahorkai's vision rivals that of Gogol's Dead Souls and far surpasses all the lesser concerns of contemporary writing' - W.G. Sebald

'Intensely thought-provoking' - Los Angeles Review of Books

'Beautiful ... through Mulzet's exceptional work, we can appreciate the enchantment of language that is attentive to precise details' - Irish Times

Author Bio

Lszl Krasznahorkai has won the 2019 National Book Award for Translated Literature and the 2015 Man Booker International Prize for lifetime achievement.

Ottilie Mulzet is a literary critic and translator of Hungarian. She received the 2019 National Book Award for Translated Literature in and the 2014 Best Translated Book Award.