u/ErnestoTBass

Dear [agent],

I am seeking representation for THE HERETIC AND THE WARLORD (81,000 words). It is a historical fiction novel that will appeal to readers who enjoy the Tibetan setting in Anaparra’s The Last of Earth and the grappling with complicity in Hampshire’s The Mare.

Tsering is a Buddhist monk, but he is not a man of peace. Violence saturates his life in early 20^(th) century Tibet: as a child, marauding Chinese troops massacre his family, and he shares his rugged home region’s hostility to authority and love of firearms. War and soldiering attract him, but he dreams of escaping into scholarly studies as a monk. Yet, Tsering cannot find refuge from his austere reality even in Tibet’s most esteemed monastery, where cold, hunger, and beatings pervade. Tsering only affords his studies’ high costs by working as a debt collector for an unsavory senior monk.

Tsering excels as a scholar, and his ravenous curiosity extends beyond the standard curriculum. Heterodox subjects become forbidden views uttered in debates. When the monastery’s leaders demand he recant, Tsering refuses out of unbending independence. The abbot declares Tsering the reincarnation of a dangerous heretic and expels him.

Wandering beyond Tibet, Tsering submerges himself in a seedy life and his darker inclinations. Stranded in Siberia near the Russian Civil War’s end, he enlists in a White Russian army to seek revenge against Bolshevik bandits who savagely attacked and robbed him. Tsering soon realizes he is marooned among thugs and extremists, led by a barbarous warlord who believes himself the apocalyptic reincarnation of the Buddhist god of war. Tsering fears he is marching toward an inescapable death and hellish rebirth. As they embark on a desperate invasion of Mongolia, Tsering resolves to endure the doomed campaign until he can desert, becoming inevitably complicit and charging into a nightmare so that he might escape to redemption in Manchuria.

I work as a translator and hold an MA in religious studies from [university], where I specialized in Buddhism and Slavic studies.

Comments:

Comps: I would like to add Fraser’s Flashman as a third comp due to a similar high degree of research, nesting a ripping yarn in real events, and framing the MS within the story as a found memoir. However, even as an auxiliary classic comp, I wonder if Flashman would be an unwise choice. I’m unsure how well known the series remains, and it feels as if mentions of the series often feature a caveat about the lowlife protagonist, thus indicating a degree of caution regarding their tone and current reception.

Title: Frankly, I don’t feel completely satisfied with this title, but most of my ideas so far seem too bland or generic (The Dark Steppes, Tsering the Heretic, Tsering and the God of War). I do like The Journey to the Pure Land, but I fear it has too much potential for misinterpretation or that readers would initially miss its references to Pure Land Buddhism and classical Chinese literature/thought, both of which become clear in the MS and have important roles in the plot.

Bio: As I’m prone to understatement and downplaying my background, I want to ensure this small part helps the query as much as possible. I have an MA from a top religion department that is widely influential across disciplines to the point that most people with graduate work in the humanities will know it. My background knowledge was vital to the research and other aspects of the MS, and I would compare the degree of accuracy and thoroughness to the Aubrey-Maturin series, Flashman books, or Bengsston’s The Long Ships. I have also published some literary translations (poetry from a Slavic language and medieval Latin, French post-Symbolist writings), but I imagine those aren’t relevant here.