Bodhidharma’s Secret

When the murder of an elderly Buddhist monk, who was also the keeper of a great secret, is discovered by the police, Ando Osho, a reputed Buddhist scholar, is appointed to investigate the case. The first man wanted is another Buddhist monk, nicknamed ＂Catchmosquitoes,＂ who becomes the main suspect given the fact that the night before the murder he and Ando Osho were supposed to indulge in a drinking bout. At the police headquarters, Catchmosquitoes meets Ume, a flirting young man garbed in a woman’s kimono. Together, these men embark on a journey full of fast-paced adventures, both sacred and profane. Daniel Deleanu’s initiatory novel, set in 17th c. Japan, is also an interactive text: at the end of the novel, readers can start reading it again, and then again, each time literally discovering a new textual layer which represents a new level of initiation. Harold Bloom, Professor of Humanities at Yale University, Professor Emeritus of English at New York University, and author of The Western Canon considered Daniel Deleanu’s book ＂the last great postmodernist novel, or perhaps the first great post-postmodernist one - a textualist extravaganza attempted by no one before, not even Joyce, whose textual mechanism resembles the ultra-precise complications of a Swiss pocket watch.＂