Ghosts, revenge, hermaphrodites, and quests across the deserts and mountains of western China – Lydia Kwa’s novel The Walking Boy has the elements of one of those literally fantastic Asian action films. But her story also has a more serious literary and philosophic intent and, what is more, is firmly based in Chinese history. The “walking boy” is Baoshi, a young disciple of a hermit in the mountains. The old man is nearing the end of his days and sends Baoshi to the city to bring back Ardhanari, a sculptor and the love of his life.

The time is the early eighth century at the end of the reign of Wu Zetian, the only woman to rule China. She is intelligent and sometimes wise, but her path to the throne was bloody and, like Lady Macbeth, she is haunted by those she killed. Shagguan Wan’er, her official scribe, takes down her thoughts, and also plots her own revenge, since her father and grandfather were among Empress Wu’s victims.

The novel can be read with pleasure as a simple adventure with interesting little sorties into Buddhism and Chinese poetry. It also contains references to bigger ideas that aren’t as readily apparent. Among them is the fact that Baoshi has both male and female genitalia. Since he is the agent of good throughout the novel, the reader is intended to see this mixture as admirable. His body, with a plump left breast and flat right one, will become the inspiration for Ardhanari’s sculptures, it seems. Kwa does not tell us this, but a school of Hindu art that shows the god Shiva united with his female lover as a hermaphrodite is called Ardhanari.

Kwa does not tell us much about the historical context either, although she does give a list of references at the end of the book. This means that, unless the reader knows as much of China as he or she might know about Europe, Kwa’s research is not apparent. Too bad: the levels of meaning become easier to fully understand if the reader can tap into some of this context and realize that Kwa isn’t just making all this up.