The White Mountain

The final instalment 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.