B.L. (Bonita) Sauder

Born in Grande Prairie, the author has lived all over the world. She has a Master of Education from Cape Town University and currently resides in Bangkok, Thailand with her husband and 2 children.

Year of the Golden Dragon is her first book publication.

The story behind the story:

"Monkey King", or known to the Chinese as "Journey to West", written by Wu Ch'eng-en(1500?-1582), a scholar-official, is one of the renowned classical Chinese novels about an allegorical rendition of the journey, mingled with Chinese fables, fairy tables, legends, superstitions, popular beliefs, monster stories as well as whatever the author could find in the Taoist and Buddhist religions. It was based on a true story of a famous Chinese monk, Xuan Zang (602-664). After years of trials and tribulations, he travelled on foot to what is today India, the birthplace of Buddhism, to seek for the Sutra, the Buddhist holy book. When he returned to China ,or the Great Tang as was called that time, he started to translate the sutras into Chinese, thus making a great contribution to the development of Buddhism in China.

This inspired Bonnie to write a modern equivalent of this classic tale.