Synopses & Reviews
Written in the style of great sagas, a majestic novel of a young man's journey to adulthood completes "Tschinag's dazzling … Mongolian triptych" (
TIME Magazine).
The story begins with the arrival of triplets, born to a woman who has given birth three times previously, and buried each child shortly thereafter. This time the delivery goes well. That same night a family of five suffocates in their beds from the smoke of their home fire. Telling the tale is a young man, Dshurukuwaa, a child from the village, who comes to understand his unique place as a shaman and a storyteller in this far-flung world of the Tuvan people.
The White Mountain is Galsan Tshinag's wondrous final installment in a trilogy that began with The Blue Sky and continued in The Gray Earth. It chronicles the coming-of-age of a nomadic Mongolian boy as he searches for personal identity amidst the tension between the modern socialist education of Mongolia and the centuries-old traditions of his Tuvan people. As he develops his shamanic powers and poetic gifts, Dshurukuwaa discovers the tragedy and magic of love, life, poetry, and dreams. Gripping and lyrical, The White Mountain is sure to become a classic of world literature.
Review
"Even Galsan Tschinag doesn't know exactly how old he ispresumably about sixty or a bit older. But that isn't so important anyhow, for in reading him one has the sense that this is a man with a millennia of experience." Der Spiegel
"A fascinating combination of ancient tradition and individual characterization." Kölner Stadt Anzeiger
"His language is marked by daily struggle with the forces of nature, and by the endeavor to maintain balance with songs and prayer. This is the power of Galsan Tschinag's language: it brings the reader back to the source." Thurgauer Zeitung
"Tschinag's books have reached well beyond his native Altai mountains, and with good reason. They speak of a true partnership between people and nature, and in a language as clear and stark as the steppes." Südwest Presse
"A wonderful discoveryTschinag's books must be called world literature." Die Zeit
Synopsis
As the story begins, we hear of the birth of triplets to a woman who's birthed three times previously, though each child died shortly thereafter. This time, however, the birth goes well, "as easy as birthing is for a nanny goat." That same night, a family of five suffocates in their beds from the smoke of their home fire. Telling the tale is a young man, a child of the village, who comes to understand the magic of life, death, poetry, and dreams. Both a shaman and a storyteller, our narrator, Dshurunkuwaa, learns to make a unique place for himself in this far-flung world of the Tuvan people.
The White Mountain is Galsan Tschinag's wondrous final installment in a trilogy which began with Dshurunkuwaa's early years in The Blue Sky, and continued with his adolescence in The Gray Earth. Gripping, lyrical, and full of mythic tales of life in a rural, Mongolian village, The White Mountain is sure to be a classic of world literature written by one of its major figures.
"Nature, family, and community tradition provide the framework for Galsan Tschinag's bittersweet remembrance of childhood.... The Mongolian novelist and short-story writer brings vividly to life the experiencessome idyllic, some tragicwhich shaped his [life]. Born in 1944 into a family of nomadic Tuvin shepherds, he studied German language and literature in Leipzig between 1962 and 1968 and writes in German. He fuses the techniques of Eastern and Western storytelling with a universal reading of the human condition.... Through [the narrator's] eyes we participate in the daily lives of all its members, who are bound to the animals that sustain them and that are, in a sense, their reason for being. We also savor the winter evenings in the yurt, when the members of the family are together, each absorbed in his or her own tasks. The boy remembers the boiling pots, the flickering fire, and the conversation as a corporeal experience, likening it to standing in a stream and feeling the tingle of the cold, rushing water against his skin. In this essentially oral society, isolated from the world of newspapers and radios, visits by friends or strangers were welcome interruptions of the daily routine, times for the exchange of news and stories. The seasons also played a crucial role in family life. They dictated the movement of the flocks and assigned the chores to be done by people. Each season had its special qualifies, winter being a time of solitude, and spring, when lambs were born, a time of new beginnings." World Literature Today (on The Blue Sky)
Synopsis
The final installment in the saga of the shepherd boy first introduced in The Blue Sky and The Gray Earth by the acclaimed Tuvan author and shaman Galsan Tschinag.
Dshurukuwaa has been sent to school in a provincial capital after being taken from his homeland in the high Altai Mountains of northern Mongolia. Torn between his people's traditional nomadic life and his early calling as a shaman on one hand, and the relative prosperity offered by a socialist education and conformity with modern ideals on the other, he falls in love with a young woman, and first experiences sexual intimacy. Still, the traditional world of his childhood calls--rich with nature, spirits, and a belief in Father Sky and Mother Earth--a call Dshurukuwaa cannot resist.
Rooted in the oral traditions of the Tuvan people and their epics, The White Mountain weaves the timeless tale of a boy poised on the cusp of manhood with the story of a people on the threshold.
Synopsis
The final installment in the saga of the shepherd boy first introduced in
The Blue Sky and
The Gray Earth, weaving the timeless tale of a boy on the cusp of manhood with the story of a people on the threshold.
Dshurukuwaa has been sent to school in a provincial capital after being taken from his homeland in the high Altai Mountains of northern Mongolia. Torn between his people's traditional nomadic life and his early calling as a shaman on one hand, and the relative prosperity offered by a socialist education and conformity with modern ideals on the other, he falls in love with a young woman, and first experiences sexual intimacy. Still, the traditional world of his childhood--rich with nature, spirits, and a belief in Father Sky and Mother Earth--calls, and Dshurukuwaa cannot resist.
Synopsis
As the story begins, we hear of the birth of triplets to a woman who's birthed three times previously, though each child died shortly thereafter. This time, however, the birth goes well, "as easy as birthing is for a nanny goat." That same night, a family of five suffocates in their beds from the smoke of their home fire. Telling the tale is a young man, a child of the village, who comes to understand the magic of life, death, poetry, and dreams. Both a shaman and a storyteller, our narrator, Dshurunkuwaa, learns to make a unique place for himself in this far-flung world of the Tuvan people.
The White Mountain is Galsan Tschinag's wondrous final installment in a trilogy which began with Dshurunkuwaa's early years in The Blue Sky and continued with his adolescence in The Gray Earth. Gripping, lyrical, and full of mythic tales of life in a rural Mongolian village, The White Mountain is a classic of world literature written by one of its major figures.
About the Author
Galsan Tschinag is a major voice in world literature. Called Irgit Schynykbaj-oglu Dshurukuwaa in his native Tuvan, he was born in the early 1940s in Mongolia. He studied at the University of Leipzig, where he adopted German as his written language. He is the only member of the Tuvan tribe to use written language to tell stories, and thus to publish. His novel
The Blue Sky was the first of his books to be available in English, though he is the author of more than 30 books, which have been translated into French, Spanish, and Polish. As the chief of Tuvans in Mongolia, Tschinag led his people, scattered under Communist rule, back in a huge caravan to their original home in the high Altai Mountains. He currently divides his time between the Altai, Ulaanbaatar, and Germany.
Katharina Rout teaches English and Comparative Literature at Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo, British Columbia. Her translations from the German have been acclaimed widely. She lives in British Columbia, Canada.