The Story

“Amarcord,” the autobiographical film by the late Italian director, Federico Fellini, and Oraga Haru (The Year of My Life), a slim volume of haiku and verse by the 18th century Buddhist poet-priest, Issa, are unusual literary and cinematic creations – from entirely different epochs and mediums and cultures – that have one core element in common: both are nostalgic fictional memoirs that condense an entire life into a symbolic year progressing through the seasons. Inspired by these works, Mr. Morais has written, Buddhaland Brooklyn, to be published by Scribner in July, 2012.

In this novel a Buddhist monk, Reverend Seido Oda, tells the bitter-sweet story of how he found his adoptive home: As a 40 year-old, repressed, and set-in-his-ways priest, Reverend Oda is sent by his Japanese superiors across the ocean with instructions to build a temple in an Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn. As the curmudgeonly priest carries out his duties, he is forced by New York and its colorful residents to confront his past, and along the way the monk finds himself unwittingly undergoing a profound transformation as the seasons around him change.