Product Description

Her second semi-autobiographical novel of desire and lust in a new city far from China...According to the author, Marrying Buddha is the continuation of her first novel Shanghai Baby, the international bestseller which was banned in China and catapulted her to fame and notoriety in the country of her birth. As in Shanghai Baby, the protagonist is Coco, a young successful female novelist who decides to leave Shanghai for New York. Coco embarks on the next leg of life's journey, a road that leads her through love, desire, and spiritual awakening. In Manhattan she meets Muju. Muju and Coco share a deep, intense passion, experimenting and exploring their desires at every available opportunity. But into this relationship enters glamorous, wealthy and impossibly urbane New Yorker Nick. And when as a result her relationship with Muju is threatened, Coco returns to China, to the tiny temple-studded island of Putu, the place of her birth. It is on Mount Putu where Coco finds some inner peace - but once back in Shanghai she is visited by both Muju and Nick and is once again caught up in the intensity and passion of the two relationships. After both men leave Coco discovers she is pregnant, but has no idea of whether it is Muju or Nick who is the father...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #297204 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-23
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
'This book is one of the first in China to portray Wei-Hui's generation of urban women, born in the 1070s, as they search for moral grounding in a country of shifting values... Wei-Hui sees herself as a feminist helping her generation of women understand themselves.' --New York Times

'A steamy Chinese novel in the Western style about life in contemporary China... condemned for exploring subjects that are completely taboo in modern Chinese literature.' --The Times

'Wei Hui is intelligent and a passionate spokesperson for the women of modern China.' --Marie Claire

About the Author
Zhou Wei Hui lives in Shanghai and is a graduate of the prestigious Fudan University. Marrying Buddha is her second novel; her first, Shanghai Baby, was an international bestseller.

Customer Reviews

I get it!
A fun story. Sometimes I was laughing; other times I was blindsided by a truth that I could feel, but I had never seen expressed in words before.

accept it for what it is and you'll find its actually very good
after having read several reviews of this book i was almost put off, but read it anyway as i'd already bought it. and i am happy i did, because it thoroughly enjoyed it. no, it's no masterpiece, but it's a story about a woman who is trying to figure herself out. it mentions details about men, sex, fashion and friendship - it may not be the stuff they look for at the orange prize but that's what life is like. the narrator is a thoughtful and insightful character who struggles to find her place in the world while staying true to herself, whoever that is. there are no great truths to be discovered here, but it remains story that will appeal to others in a similar situation, or to people who want a story about the extraordinary in the everyday.

Self-obsessed and self-important, with the odd good bit inbetween
Even if you liked Shanghai Baby, this sequel-of-sorts may not appeal. The veil seems to have slipped a little - "Marrying Buddha" feels more directly autobiographical than its predecessor, and the narrator comes accross as so self-orientated, self-indulgent and careless about her effect on others that it's damned hard to warm to her, or to care much what becomes of her. In addition, the author seems rather desperate to inject exotic flavour into the novel, and some characters seem a little too contrived and improbable. It would be unfair to dismiss this entirely - it's got some very readable passages - but it's lightweight stuff which seems to think itself rather more profound than it is.