| Destruction and Sorrow Beneath the Heavens | |
| Author: | László Krasznahorkai |
| Translator: | Ottilie Mulzet |
| Title Orig: | Rombolás és bánat az Ég alatt |
| Country: | Hungary |
| Language: | Hungarian |
| Publisher: | Magvető |
| Pub Date: | January 2004 |
| English Pub Date: | 2016 |
| Pages: | 312 |
| Isbn: | 9789631423785 |
Destruction and Sorrow Beneath the Heavens is a 2004 book by the Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai. The narrator, László Stein, travels in China in search of examples of classical Chinese culture and understanding how contemporary Chinese society relates to it. An English translation by Ottilie Mulzet was published in 2016.
In the Los Angeles Review of Books, Michael LaPointe wrote that "Krasznahorkai channels the works of W.G. Sebald, who saw ashes on every attraction, and — unexpectedly — the novels of Michel Houellebecq, which trace the extension of the domain of the market into the sacred realms of human experience".[1] Publishers Weekly called the book an "occasionally frustrating yet often dazzling travel memoir".[2]