The three leaps of Wang Lun
Subtitle: a Chinese novel
By: By Alfred Döblin ; Translated by C. D. Godwin
Contributors: Godwin, C. D., translator
Series: Calligrams
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Number of pages: 490
ISBN-13: 9789629965648
Subjects: Fiction; History
Work titles: Drei Sprünge des Wang-lun
Description: "In 1915, fourteen years before Berlin Alexanderplatz, Alfred Doblin published his first novel, an amazing, extensively researched Chinese historical extravaganza: The Three Leaps of Wang Lun. Even more remarkably, given its subject matter, the book was written in expressionist style and is now considered the first modern German novel, as well as the first Western novel to depict a China untouched by the West. Based on actual accounts of a doomed rebellion during the reign of Emperor Qianlong in the late eighteenth century, the novel tells the story of Wang Lun, a historical martial arts master and charismatic leader of the White Lotus sect, who leads a futile revolt of the "Truly Powerless." Densely packed cities and Tibetan wastes, political intrigue and religious yearning, imperial court life and the fate of wandering outcasts are depicted in a language of enormous vigor and matchless imagination, unfolding the theme of timidity against force and a mystical sense of the world against the realities of power"--

"China 1760-1774 Novel translated from the German"--