Forever Is Time Enough
Publisher
:
Albin Michel
Parution date
:
2002
EAN
:
9782226127020
Description
A Chinese Tristan & Iseult, L'ETERNITE N'EST PAS DE TROP is the heart-wrenching story of Dao-sheng and Lan-Ying, star-crossed lovers separated by fate. The time is the XVIIth century, the turbulent end of the Ming dynasty. From the monastery high on the mountain comes a young man. He has not yet taken his vows. Before doing so he needs to see the woman of his dreams one last time. He finds her still living in the same village, but married to Zhao the Second, the ignoble son of a powerful local family. Zhao has rejected Lan-Ying, and taken up with a prostitute. Lan-Ying meanwhile, is peacefully resigned to a marginal existence on the grounds of the Zhao estate, tending to the poor through works of charity and worshipping at the temple. She is much loved. Dao-sheng manages to earn a living as a healer, gifted in the art of Taoist medicine. His superb reputation leads him into the Zhao household, and right to Lan-Ying's sick-bed. In order for Dao-sheng to take her pulse, she must extend her arm out to him from behind the bed-curtain. In a scene of restrained desire as intense as it is erotic, their hands touch, and a passion is reborn. Though she ignores his identity as the man she once loved, the simple touch of his hand speaks a thousand words. As her health gradually improves, Dao-sheng reveals his identity to her: he is none other than the young man whom she had met and fallen in love with decades earlier at a family celebration. They vow to never leave one another again. In this timeless love out of favor with time, forever will have to do.
Author
François Cheng : François Cheng is a poet, translator, and the author of one previous novel, Le Dit de Tianyi (THE RIVER BELOW, Welcome Rain, 2001). His previous novel received the prestigious Prix Fémina and the author is also the recipient of the Grand Prix de la Francophonie de l'Académie Française.
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