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Title details for We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies by Tsering Yangzom Lama - Available

We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies

A Novel

by Tsering Yangzom Lama
Asha Vijayasingham
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
A New York Times Book Review Summer Read Pick • A Washington Post Noteworthy Book of the Month • One of Booklist's Top 10 Historical Fiction Debuts • One of Publishers Weekly's Writers to Watch • Named a Most Anticipated Book by The Millions, Ms. Magazine, and Bustle • Winner of the Banff Mountain Book Award • Shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and the Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes • Longlisted for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and the Toronto Book Award.
For readers of Homegoing and The Boat People, a compelling and profound debut novel about a Tibetan family's journey through exile.
In the wake of China’s invasion of Tibet throughout the 1950s, Lhamo and her sister, Tenkyi, arrive at a refugee camp on the border of Nepal, having survived the dangerous journey across the Himalayas into exile when so many others did not. As Lhamo—haunted by the loss of her homeland and her mother, the village oracle—tries to rebuild a life amid a shattered community, hope arrives in the form of a young man named Samphel and his uncle, who brings with him the ancient statue of the Nameless Saint, a relic long rumoured to vanish and reappear in times of need.
     Decades later, the sisters are separated, and Tenkyi is living with Lhamo’s daughter, Dolma, in Toronto's Parkdale neighbourhood. While Tenkyi works as a cleaner and struggles with traumatic memories, Dolma vies for a place as a scholar of Tibetan Studies. But when Dolma comes across the Nameless Saint in a collector’s vault, she must decide what she is willing to do for her community, even if it means risking her dreams.
     Breathtaking in scope and powerfully intimate, We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies is a gorgeously written meditation on colonization, displacement, and the lengths we'll go to remain connected to our families and ancestral lands. Told through the lives of four people over fifty years, this beautifully lyrical debut novel provides a nuanced portrait of the world of Tibetan exiles.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    May 24, 2022

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780771004001
      • File size: 434463 KB
      • Duration: 15:05:07

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 14, 2022
      Lama debuts with the heartfelt and magical saga of a Tibetan family’s love, sacrifice, and heritage. Starting in 1960, Lama interweaves the lives of four characters: Lhamo and her younger sister Tenkyi, whose parents are killed during their flight from Tibet to Nepal, where they resettle in a village for refugees; Lhamo’s daughter Dolma; and Samphel, Lhamo’s childhood love, whom she meets in Nepal. Lama also explores the influence of a ku—an ancient statue that Samphel’s uncle brings into Lhamo’s village—on each of their lives. Lhamo, despite heartache, encourages her younger sister to leave their village to study in India and improve her future prospects. Decades later, in another act of selflessness, Lhamo suggests her daughter join Tenkyi, now in Toronto, to complete her studies and have a better life. When Dolma discovers the ku of Lhamo’s childhood in the possession of a private collector in Canada, she sets in motion a series of events that illustrate the power of the ancient relic and its hold on Lhamo’s family. Lama imbues this mesmerizing tale—informed by her own family fleeing Tibet for Nepal in the early 1960s— with a rich sense of history, mysticism, and ritual. This brings great revelations and significance to a family’s courage and acts of cultural preservation.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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