The Blue Sky
by Galsan Tschinag
2021-05-28 07:03:38
A boyâs nomadic life in Mongolia is under threat in a novel that âcaptures the mountains, valleys and steppes in all their surpassing beauty and brutalityâ (Minneapolis Star-Tribune). In the high Altai Mountains of northern Mongolia, a...
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A boyâs nomadic life in Mongolia is under threat in a novel that âcaptures the mountains, valleys and steppes in all their surpassing beauty and brutalityâ (Minneapolis Star-Tribune). In the high Altai Mountains of northern Mongolia, a young shepherd boy comes of age, tending his familyâs flocks on the mountain steppes and knowing little of the world beyond the surrounding peaks. But his nomadic way of life is increasingly disrupted by modernity. This confrontation comes in stages. First, his older siblings leave the family yurt to attend a distant boarding school. Then the boyâs grandmother dies, and with her his connection to the old ways. But perhaps the greatest tragedy strikes when his dog, Arsylangââall that was left to meââingests poison set out by the boyâs father to protect his herd from wolves. âWhy is it so?â Dshurukawaa cries out in despair to the Heavenly Blue Sky, to be answered only by the wind. Rooted in the oral traditions of the Tuvan people, The Blue Sky weaves the timeless story of a boy poised on the cusp of manhood with the story of a people on the threshold. âThrilling. . . . Tschinag makes it easy for his readers to fall into the beautiful rhythms of the Tuvansâ daily life.â âLos Angeles Times Book Review âIn this pristine and concentrated tale of miraculous survival and anguished loss, Tschinag evokes the nurturing warmth of a family within the circular embrace of a yurt as an ancient way of life lived in harmony with nature becomes endangered.â âBooklist
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