Night Boat

“One of the best Scottish writers of our time” offers “a fictional re-creation of the life and teachings of the 18th century Zen master Ekaku Hakuin” (Scotsman).

On the side of a mountain in eighteenth-century Japan sits a man in perfect stillness as the summit erupts, spitting fire and molten rock onto the land around him. The man is Hakuin. He will become the world’s most famous teacher of Zen—and this is not the first time he has seen hell.

In Night Boat, acclaimed author Alan Spence presents a richly imagined chronicle of Hakuin’s life. On his long and winding quest for truth, Hakuin will be called upon to defy his father, face death, find love, and lose it. He will ask, what is the sound of one hand clapping? And he will master his greatest fear.

This beautifully rendered novel “presents a vivid and comprehensive picture of Japanese society, and every chapter is also full of incidental beauties, little stories and parables, short poems, snatches of lovely description, gnomic conversations, and acute observations” (Scotsman).

“Spence is a visionary.” —Ali Smith, award-winning author of How to Be Both

“Rich in historical detail, and the drama of the battle between a man’s inner and outer lives.” —The Times, UK