THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO YONG SHENG - DAI SIJIE

"He wasn't chasing perfection. He just wanted to capture life. And life? Life is imperfect."

So. 1910. Small Chinese town called Putian. A carpenter's kid is born with one testicle. Same day they plant an aguillaria tree. Grandma says this kid's going places.

His dad? Local legend. Makes these whistles for doves—tiny carved things you attach to the bird's feathers. When the doves fly, they sing. It's through this craft that Yong the Elder meets Pastor Gu, a dove fanatic. At three years old, Yong Sheng gets shipped off to live with this pastor. The pastor's daughter Mary becomes his teacher, his obsession. First taste of Christianity. Twenty years later he's at Nankin seminary becoming China's first homegrown Chinese pastor.

"Jesus hated rich people so much that if he were alive today, he'd be a communist."

Look, this book grabbed me from page one and didn't let go. It spans a hundred years of Chinese chaos—from the Guomintang Republic through to now. You get all the beautiful stuff about China: ancient traditions, insane cultural refinement, the poetry embedded in everyday objects. Then you get the horror. What Mao's years did to regular people. Unforgivable stuff.

This carpenter's son is basically a Chinese Christ figure—he lives way longer than Jesus but his whole existence is one long Via Dolorosa. Faith carries him through. Probably Dai Sijie's own faith too, considering he's rehabilitating his actual grandfather's story here. Bible quotes everywhere. And you'd need faith like tempered steel to survive Mao's China.

"The media back then claimed every word could be a bullet fired at an enemy's head, a knife thrust into their heart."

We follow this guy from birth to death. He learns to carve dove whistles like his father. Undergoes a brutal surgery. Gets forced into marriage. Tames doves. Walks across China on foot to find Mary again. Opens a church. Preaches until the Communist Party labels him an enemy of the people, strips his church away, condemns him to forced labor. Then the Cultural Revolution hits in the '70s and things get exponentially worse. The sacrifices he makes are borderline insane.

His whole life is tragedy. But Dai Sijie tells it with this poetic, almost comic lightness. Through all the chaos, that aguillaria tree planted at his birth becomes his protector—a vegetable twin, a companion, a comfort:

"My old tree had lived through every tribulation. Died. Suffered hell. But deep underground, it resurrected."

Dai Sijie is a master storyteller. Anecdote after anecdote, each one stranger than the last. Characters dripping with charm. His writing style is visual and emotional—it drops you physically into this life that, despite being constantly battered, remains full of beautiful moments. A gorgeous story that somehow radiates joy and hope. Because life always wins. Always.

Gallimard, Blanche collection, 2024. — 448 pages.