The Nine Cloud Dream

About

A young Buddhist monk, punished for a moment of worldly desire, is reborn as the son of a nobleman and lives an entire life of ambition, love, and glory — eight wives, military triumph, political power — before waking to discover that it was all a dream, and the dream was the lesson. Written in the seventeenth century, Korea's most celebrated classical novel is a Buddhist parable wrapped in an adventure romance. Kim Man-jung wrote this while in political exile, and the novel's central question — whether worldly achievement is worth pursuing if it's ultimately illusory — carries the weight of personal experience. The new translation by Heinz Insu Fenkl restores the vitality and strangeness of the original. A 350-year-old novel about the dream of success — and the moment you realize you've been asleep the whole time.