Buddha's Pass

In a remote mountain hollow where the Guanzhong Plain meets Shangzhou lies the secluded town of Foguan - a place where "ugliness" is worshipped as beauty. Here, the townspeople are grotesquely misshapen, and even the fruits, vegetables, and trees twist into bizarre, unnatural forms. Against this strange backdrop, Duizi and his cousin, blessed with natural beauty, become the targets of envy, resentment, and violence.

Told in a first-person, stream-of-consciousness style, the novel masterfully...