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WE MEASURE THE EARTH WITH OUR BODIES
By: Tsering Yangzom Lama
Bloomsbury Publishing
October 2023
On Sale: September 26, 2023
Featuring: Lhamo; Dolma
368 pages
ISBN: 1639731849
EAN: 9781639731848
Kindle: B09LMKCS3R
Trade Paperback / e-Book
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Fiction Family Life
For readers of Homegoing and The Leavers, a compelling and profound debut novel about a Tibetan family's journey through exile.
International Bestseller
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
Shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize
In the wake of China's invasion of Tibet throughout the 1950s, Lhamo and her younger sister, Tenkyi, arrive at a refugee camp in Nepal. They survived the dangerous journey across the Himalayas, but their parents did not. As Lhamo-haunted by the loss of her homeland and her mother, a 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 known 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. 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 its scope and powerful in its intimacy, 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 novel provides a nuanced, moving portrait of the little-known world of Tibetan exiles.
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