Description

Bloomsbury presents We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies by Tsering Yangzom Lama read by Asha Vijayasingham Shridhar Solanki and Rishma Malik Scott

International Bestseller
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
Shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize
For readers of Homegoing and The Leavers a compelling and profound debut novel about a Tibetan familys journey through exile

In the wake of Chinas 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 Lhamohaunted by the loss of her homeland and her mother a village oracletries 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 Sainta relic known to vanish and reappear in times of need

Decades later the sisters are separated and Tenkyi is living with Lhamos 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 collectors 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 well 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 littleknown world of Tibetan exiles