Western Reactions To Marrying Buddha
The English translator of Marrying Buddha, Larissa Heinrich, a lecturer in Chinese Studies and 'Transnational Chinese Media' in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of the University of New South Wales, Australia, said of her translation project that:
"It was an exciting opportunity to translate Marrying Buddha," says Heinrich. "The book is an important cultural artefact, it's at the front line of a new genre of semi-autobiographical popular writing being produced by young Chinese women authors."
Wei Hui's second novel received contrasting reviews. Some reviewers praised the book for its daring, erotic and modern content, considering it to be groundbreaking because it explored subjects taboo in China. Marie Claire magazine praised Wei Hui for being an 'intelligent and passionate spokeswoman for the women of modern China'.
Other reviewers criticized the novel's lack of coherence, its shallow content, the lack of growth of its narrator, and its cliches. In The Adelaide Review, Gillian Dooley criticized the book for its 'cringefully tacky' moments, and wrote that:
It’s a little difficult to know how to approach this book. Presumably it has been translated into English from the original Chinese, though no translator is acknowledged, and this might account for some passages which read strangely. However, there’s no disguising the vapidity and self-indulgence of Marrying Buddha.
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