Jan-Philipp Sendker didn't purposefully set out to write a sequel to his first novel, "The Art of Hearing Heartbeats." It was his character, the New York-based lawyer, Julia Win, who was the persistent one, as he described. Finally setting aside other projects, Sendker listened to her and wrote.
The result is "A Well-Tempered Heart," translated from the original German and released earlier this month in English. Sendker, who will be in Montclair to discuss the book next Thursday, Feb. 6, said that to him, the work speaks of "the difficult art of forgiveness."
The first novel, translated into more than 30 languages, is "a very special, very moving love story," Sendker said, and concentrates on the love affair of Julia's Burmese father, a tale that describes how a blind man fell in love with a crippled woman by hearing the quality of her heartbeat from afar.
"In the second book, Julia isn't searching for her father. She's searching for herself," Sendker explained. "Something is missing in her life. She feels a certain emptiness, maybe a burnout. To heal her soul she has to get back to Burma."
Sendker is a former journalist who wrote for the German weekly news magazine, Stern. He was based in Asia for four years and in New York City for eight years. He visited Burma as a journalist, describing it as a "place which touched and moved me so much." To him, its isolation and spiritualism were striking.
"It was like visiting another planet," Sendker said.
In the mid-1990s, the nation's government started opening up and looking to promote tourism, Sendker said: "They realized the country was going downhill rapidly. They needed some contact with the outside world."
Sendker learned well from his journalistic craft that research is essential in pursuing storytelling, especially in areas one may be less than familiar with, he said.
The author noted he was also touched by the sense of forgiveness that Burmese people displayed, even under horrific circumstances.
"Life is not easy there," Sendker said, noting the history of "brutal" dictatorship.
http://www.information.myanmaronlinecentre.com/montclair-times-bookshelf-burmas-teachings-of-the-heart-2/
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