Introduction

I LOVE LORD BUDDHA is the transgressive, transcendent first novel that some are calling the future of literature, and others are calling a post-pornographic revolution. Set in late-90’s Tokyo, it recounts the history of the Neo-Geisha Organization, a sex-and-death cult with an anti-consumerist, pro-hedonist, sub-Buddhist ideology. The cult is led by Hiyoko, a leggy Westerner with a penchant for Eastern philosophy and drug-fuelled sex binges. Her followers are the young women whose curiosity and perfect bodies have taken them thousands of miles from home to work in Tokyo’s neon-lit network of hostess bars.

I LOVE LORD BUDDHA takes its inspiration from the classical Japanese literature of the first millennium, the AUM Shinrikyo subway-gas cult, and the esoteric texts of Buddhism, while recalling the ultra-modern iconography of films like Kill Bill 1. Reading like manga, sounding like hard techno, feeling like fetish, I LOVE LORD BUDDHA paves the way for a new literature of undiluted aesthetics and ecstasy.

“Hillary Raphael’s devastating first novel delicately incises the raw sensorial material that makes Tokyo the most compelling contemporary city: sex, obsession, digital excess and religious terrorism. Haunting and innovative, it’s a brilliantly multi-vocal debut that will leave its readers begging for more of its intense and aberrant pleasures. Intoxicating.” –Stephen Barber

Hillary Raphael is 28 and lives in New York and Tokyo. She is also the author of OUTCAST SAMURAI DANCER, a study of Japanese avant-garde dance. I LOVE LORD BUDDHA is her first novel.

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Excerpt

the cherry blossoms in ueno park were peaking on the evening the Neo-Geisha Organization took the Good Step. other lovely tokyo spots to view the blossoms were yoyogi park, komazawa park, the banks of the sumida, and yasukuni shrine, but where the Ancient Capital sat in regal splendor in the industrial wasteland of kawasaki, the only cherry grove was the one the girls had erected inside the warehouse— ten size-XXL plastic christmas trees dusted with pink glitter. fluffy white futons lay on the floor at varied angles, some in clusters of three, of five, others individual. an aerial view would have revealed a sky under the sky, where, within each cloud, lay a sleeping girl dreaming exquisitely garish textile-dreams in all-new colors, of dragons, clear rivers, tigers, magic mountains, hummingbirds, bodies of perfection performing dances with no end. ... view entire excerpt...

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»	Neo-geisha web site
»	Excerpt
»	Publisher's Book Info

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