Bearing Word

The world is full of ghosts, but only donkeys can see them. Meanwhile, in the human world, war has been waging for a hundred years with no resolution in sight, the death toll climbing higher and higher like the pagodas of sound built by donkeys braying and humans chanting scripture

Hsieh, a young jenny, is thrust into the care of Ku, who is tasked with bringing her across the immense desert between the two warring kingdoms. On a year-long journey filled with fearsome battles, headless ghosts and randy jacks, donkey and man come to realise the futility of this endless war and are forced to confront the most fundamental law of nature: everything has a soul.

Set in Liu Liangcheng's home region of Xinjiang during ancient times, Bearing Word explores the power of sound and the many languages scattered across the vast expanse of the Gobi Desert, in a narrative set against the backdrop of a century-long war.