The Incarnations

"Hailed as "China's Midnight's Children," a gripping new novel about a Beijing taxi driver whose past incarnations haunt him through searing letters sent by his mysterious soulmate"--

New York Times Notable Book of 2015 Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of 2015 Finalist for the 2015 Kirkus Prize for Fiction Winner of a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize Hailed by The New York Times for its “wildly ambitious...dazzling use of language” and “mesmerizing storytelling,” The Incarnations is a “brilliant, mind-expanding, and wildly original novel” (Chris Cleave) about a Beijing taxi driver whose past incarnations over one thousand years haunt him through searing letters sent by his mysterious soulmate. Who are you? you must be wondering. I am your soulmate, your old friend, and I have come back to this city of sixteen million in search of you. So begins the first letter that falls into Wang’s lap as he flips down the visor in his taxi. The letters that follow are filled with the stories of Wang’s previous lives—from escaping a marriage to a spirit bride, to being a slave on the run from Genghis Khan, to living as a fisherman during the Opium Wars, and being a teenager on the Red Guard during the cultural revolution—bound to his mysterious “soulmate,” spanning one thousand years of betrayal and intrigue. As the letters continue to appear seemingly out of thin air, Wang becomes convinced that someone is watching him—someone who claims to have known him for over a century. And with each letter, Wang feels the watcher growing closer and closer… Seamlessly weaving Chinese folklore, history, literary classics, and the notion of reincarnation, this is a taut and gripping novel that reveals the cyclical nature of history as it hints that the past is never truly settled.

'Mesmerising storytelling' NEW YORK TIMES A New York Time Notable book of the year SHORTLISTED FOR THE KIRKUS REVIEW PRIZE Beijing, 2008, the Olympics are coming, but as taxi driver Wang circles the city's congested streets, he feels barely alive. His daily grind is suddenly interrupted when he spots a letter in the sunshade of his cab. Someone is watching him. Someone who claims to be his soulmate and to have known him for over a thousand years. Other letters follow, taking Wang back in time: to a spirit-bride in the Tang Dynasty; to young slaves during the Mongol invasion; to concubines plotting to kill the emperor; to a kidnapping in the Opium War; and to Red Guards during the Cultural revolution. With each letter, Wang feels the watcher in the shadows growing closer ... __________________________________ PRAISE FOR SUSAN BARKER: '[A] kaleidoscopically imaginative novel...Barker stitches together an unnervingly perceptive portrait of China and of the enduring influence that its past has on the present' The New Yorker 'A thrilling journey through a thousand years of obsession and betrayal, this is the most extraordinary work of imagination you'll read all year' ADAM JOHNSON, Winner of the PULITZER Prize for Fiction 'Erudite, intriguing and compulsively readable, Susan Barker, a born story-teller, has written one of the most remarkable novels of recent years' JOHN BOYNE 'A brilliant, mind-expanding, and wildly original novel' CHRIS CLEAVE 'What a ferociously talented writer Susan Barker is. The Incarnations is a hallucinatory ride. Highly recommend' ANNA HOPE

For all of India’s myths, stories and moral epics, Indian history remains a curiously unpeopled place. In Incarnations, Sunil Khilnani fills that space, recapturing the human dimension of how the world’s largest democracy came to be. His trenchant portraits of emperors, warriors, philosophers, film stars and corporate titans—some famous, some unjustly forgotten—bring feeling, wry humour and uncommon insight to dilemmas that extend from ancient times to our own.

"Hailed as "China's Midnight's Children," a gripping new novel about a Beijing taxi driver whose past incarnations haunt him through searing letters sent by his mysterious soulmate"--

Legions of Clive Barker fans will relish three early works from the wicked imagination of one of the best-known fantasy/horror writers of the decade. Incarnations is a cross-disciplinary marvel, a great, glorious feast of the imagination taking us on a journey through wildly varied theatrical and emotional terrains, from the pain and intrigue of domestic transgressions to the monstrous horrors wrought by war; from lustful garden liasons to subterranean cannibalism. Barker uses unpredictable rhythms that draw less from theatrical convention and more from life itself, with apocalyptic spectacle and intimate reality sharing the stage as equal and sometimes indistinguishable partners. The three works that make up Incarnations - Colossus; Frankenstein in Love, or the Life of Death; and The History of the Devil, or Scenes from a Pretended Life -- combine the shock and magic and heartbreak that has made Barker's unique vision a compelling force in all the media he has touched.

Nox, the Incarnation of Night and Mistress of Secrets... It is the year 500 AD. Kerena, a beautiful young girl living near King Arthur's Camelot, is apprenticed to Morely the Seer. Morely teaches her fantastic magic, but when he mysteriously disappears, Kerena finds herself out on the street and must resort to prostitution to survive. Kerena prospers as a skilled courtesan until she is taken into service by Morgan le Fey, the sorceress sister of King Arthur. Kerena's knowledge of magic grows as she is required to carry out nefarious deeds for the evil Lady Fey. One of her missions is to seduce Sir Gawain, Knight of the Round Table, to prevent him from locating the Holy Grail. But Gawain and Kerena fall in love and she conceives his child, a child she discovers is cursed to die an early death. Using her Seer abilities, Kerena tries to locate the fabled Incarnations of Immortality, seeking their aid in removing the taint from her baby. Rebuffed by all seven major Incarnations, Kerena vows revenge. But revenge against such mighty immortals would require an even greater power... (Book 8 of Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series.)

Incarnations showcases twenty years of Eyre's uniquely performative portraits deconstructing what it means to be a thinker, woman, and subject.Incarnations is the first collection to make accessible a representative body of work by one of Canada's most original, provocative, and internationally acclaimed photographers. Spanning the artist's seven major series dating from 1993 to 2013, Incarnations showcases and celebrates the theatricality and carnivalesque abandon that has become the hallmark of Eyre's portraits. With contributions from renowned Canadian poets, playwrights, and novelists including Christian B�k, Lynn Crosbie, and RM Vaughan, as well as the Chicago Tribune's Lori Waxman, Incarnations highlights the ways, as James D. Campbell writes, '[Eyre] stops us in our tracks at every juncture with the stark, hallucinatory clarity of her visual language.'