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Stone Bridge Press Announces October 2009 Release of Hidden Buddhas by Liza Dalby
Startling new novel from the author of Geisha and The Tale of Murasaki
by Liza Dalby
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“Hidden Buddhas may well be Liza Dalby's best work yet; with its fascinating story of characters caught up in a world they themselves don't understand. Besides taking us on a journey through little-known corners of Japan, it offers us an engaging and believable portrait of people driven to do things they may not have imagined.”
—Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha
May 2009 (Berkeley, CA) – Stone Bridge Press announces the forthcoming publication of Hidden Buddhas: A Novel of Karma and Chaos (October 2009) by Liza Dalby.
According to Buddhist theology, the world is suffering through a final corrupt era called mappô. As mappô continues, chaos will increase until the center can no longer hold. Then the world will end. In Japan, many believe that Miroku, the Buddha of the Future, will appear and bring about a new age of enlightenment.
From this ancient notion of doom and rebirth comes a startling new novel by the acclaimed author of Geisha and The Tale of Murasaki. Hundreds of temples in Japan are known to keep mysterious “hidden buddhas” secreted away except on rare designated viewing days. These statues are not hidden because they are powerful—their power lies in their being hidden. Are they being protected, or are they protecting the world?
In this novel, one Buddhist priest struggles with the dictates of his inherited orthodoxy, while another rebels. An American graduate student begins to suspect the mysterious purpose of the hidden buddhas, just as he falls in love with a beautiful Japanese artist who is haunted by an aborted child. The weaving of karma that brings these two together results in a tech-savvy half-Western, half-Japanese child who text-messages her way through the profane world to enlightenment.
Tracing the lives of its characters through the late twentieth century to the present, from Paris to Kyoto to California, Hidden Buddhas becomes something of a Buddhist Da Vinci Code, turning a cosmopolitan eye on discipline and decadence in religion, fashion, politics, and modern life.
Praised for her "keen perception" (Booklist) and ability to transport "readers to another world" (Salon.com), Liza Dalby is an anthropologist (PhD Stanford) and writer (Geisha, The Tale of Murasaki, Kimono, East Wind Melts the Ice) best known for being the first Westerner to have become a geisha. Hidden Buddhas is her first book with Stone Bridge Press. She lives in Berkeley, California.
Stone Bridge Press is an English-language publisher specializing in books about Asia. Founded in 1989 by publisher Peter Goodman, the Berkeley-based company has over 150 titles in print and has received numerous awards for publishing excellence, including two Benjamin Franklin Awards. Stone Bridge authors include Donald Richie (The Inland Sea) and Kenji Nakagami (The Cape and Other Stories from the Japanese Ghetto). Stone Bridge titles are distributed by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution.
Hidden Buddhas: A Novel of Karma and Chaos
by Liza Dalby
398 pp, paperback original, 12 b/w illustrations
978-1-933330-62-4, $16.95, Fiction
OCTOBER 2009
Stone Bridge Press
For more information, please contact publicity@stonebridge.com.
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