Mark Salzman is an acclaimed novelist and nonfiction author whose works explore a diverse range of subjects. His prose is marked by elegance, humor, and a penetrating insight into the human condition, often delving into themes of striving for an ideal and the inevitable human shortfall. Salzman's style marries gut-wrenching honesty with unalloyed warmth and a sharp sense of humor. His unique ability to capture the complexities of human struggles and quiet internal changes resonates with readers across genres and cultural contexts.
Salzman captures post-cultural revolution China through his adventures as a young American English teacher in China and his shifu-tudi (master-student) relationship with China's foremost martial arts teacher.
In this novel Mark Salzman opens up the mysterious world of the cloister, drawing a brilliant portrait of the rigours of religious life, and especially of one woman's trial at the perilous intersection of faith and reason.
As a child, Renne showed promise of becoming one of the world's greatest cellists. Now, years later, his life suddenly is altered by two he becomes a juror in a murder trial for the brutal killing of a Buddhist monk, and he takes on as a pupil a Korean boy whose brilliant musicianship reminds him of his own past.
Mit Witz und Selbstironie erzählt der Autor von 'Eisen und Seide' und 'Der Solist' von seiner wilden Zeit in den siebziger Jahren, als er davon träumte, ein buddhistischer Mönch zu werden, sich in chinesischen Kampfkünsten übte und gleichzeitig mit Marihuana experimentierte. Der hinreißende Bericht über eine Jugend zwischen zwei Kulturen.