During a trip to China, the author encounters the painter Tianyi, an old acquaintance, who gives him his written confessions. Tianyi lived through the pre-war period in a China in turmoil, still steeped in its traditions. Later, during the 1950s, he lived in the West, where he experienced poverty but also discovered a different vision of art and life.

Returning to his country, now in the throes of revolution, he longed to find two loved ones: Yumei, his lover, and Haolang, his friend. But a dramatic event swept them into turmoil, in which Tianyi, in turn, would be caught up... Beyond the events, however, their passionate quest would transform the destinies of each of them.

Poet, translator, essayist, and specialist in the arts of his native country, François Cheng has transformed lived experience into an extraordinary novelistic fresco, acclaimed by critics and awarded the 1998 Prix Femina.

Few books contain an entire life. Even rarer are those that bring together several lives in their depth. And rare among the rare are those that manage to unite two foreign worlds, to suggest what binds them together through the alchemy of a mysterious and universal communion. This is what François Cheng has achieved in an incomparable work.

Jean Mambrino, Etudes.