We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies: In Exile from Tibet
Sunday, May 7 | 11:30 AM - 12:30 PMThe Marsh Berkeley - Cabaret
- International
- Literary
Very few novels by Tibetans have been translated into English and published in the United States. We’re fortunate that award-winning Tibetan-Canadian writer Tsering Yangzom Lama is joining us to discuss her gorgeous, fascinating debut novel, We Measure the Earth with our Bodies. The story moves among traditions, places, and times past and present as it brings the reader into the lives of Tibetan refugees, initially in Nepal and later in Canada. The novel follows two sisters, who in the wake of China’s invasion in the 1950s flee Tibet over the Himalayas into Nepal. Haunted by the loss of their homeland and of their mother, who had been a beloved village oracle, they cling to a sacred object, a small wooden statue dubbed The Nameless Saint, a talisman of hope that is said to appear and disappear according to need. The relic becomes central to the plot when it disappears, only to be found years later by the daughter of one of the women, in a collector’s vault in Toronto. Lama drew on the history of her own family fleeing Tibet for Nepal in the 1960s.
Book signing information: Marcus Books, at the venue
With the support of the Consulate General of Canada San Francisco/Silicon Valley
