In the turbulent final years of the Yuan Dynasty, Wang Meng is a minor bureaucrat in the government of the Mongol conquerors. He is also an extraordinarily gifted artist whose paintings capture the infinite expanse of China's natural beauty. But an empire in turmoil is not a place or time for sitting still. On his journeys across the realm, Wang encounters fellow master painters, a fierce female warrior known as the White Tigress who recruits him as a military strategist, and an unprepossessing young Buddhist monk who rises from beggary to extraordinary heights.

John Spurling's award-winning The Ten Thousand Things seamlessly fuses the epic and the intimate with the precision and depth that the real-life Wang Meng brought to his art.

A Walter Scott Prize-winning novel set in fourteenth-century China: a Duckworth contemporary classic, beautifully repackaged for our 125th anniversary

About the Author

John Spurling is an award-winning historical novelist and playwright whose plays have been performed on TV, radio and stage, including at the National Theatre. He has reviewed for a range of newspapers, magazines and BBC radio, and was for twelve years the art critic of the New Statesman. He lives in London and is married to the biographer Hilary Spurling. He is the author of several books, including Arcadian Days and Arcadian Nights. For more information, visit: www.johnspurling.com

Reviews

'Spellbinding... The Ten Thousand Things has the sort of sensual prose that makes the reader purr with delight and is surely destined to be one of the books of the year' Daily Mail

'In this immersive tale of a landscape artist's life, written with restrained lyricism, John Spurling has also given us an entertaining and insightful study about the art of nature, and the nature of art' Tan Twan Eng, author of The Garden of Evening Mists

'A truly remarkable achievement... Dramatic, absorbing, tender and profound... extraordinary and wonderful' Miranda Seymour, author of Noble Endeavours and In My Father's House

'An enormous pleasure from start to finish' Rachel Billington, author of Maria and Emma and Knightley

'This is an extraordinary novel. Spurling brings together his strengths as a dramatist, an art critic and a novelist. It is an impressive combination that gives a tone of authenticity to his absorbing story and adds to its enjoyment. I look forward to the film' Michael Holroyd, author of A Book of Secrets

'I was amazed by The Ten Thousand Things, and by John Spurling's powerful imagination - with ten thousand details, he has brought the ancient Chinese artist Wang Meng to life in beautiful prose' Xinran, author of Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother

'Wang Meng is one of the most fascinating figures in Chinese history. In this lucid and brilliant novel, John Spurling uses him as a key character to recreate the end of an empire. A vivid evocation of a turbulent era with echoes of debates today about loyalty, choices and artistic integrity' Rana Mitter, author of Forgotten Ally

Awards
Winner of The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2015.



Book Information
ISBN 9780715654941
Author John Spurling
Format Paperback
Page Count 368
Imprint Duckworth
Publisher Duckworth Books