We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies

We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies

By Tsering Yangzom Lama
$26.00
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Through a stirring intergenerational saga that spans decades and continents, Tsering Yangzom Lama deftly unearths how exiles create home when their homeland has been stolen. With tender authenticity, We Measure the Earth With Our Bodies delicately and vigorously illustrates the ongoing human cost of Tibetan displacement, and the resolve of refugees to uphold a strong diaspora despite the violence of colonialism. The Tibetan women at the centre of Lama’s story are bound by an unflinching love for each other, their people, and the country to which they can no longer return. Vast in time, space, and feeling, this determined novel builds a vibrant world that’s both expansive and exact. Each line carefully bears the weight of longing for what once was, and the hope to sustain an uprooted culture still coming to be. Regenerative in spirit, the pages of this story are both an homage to survival and a home for the exiled.
Jury citation, Scotiabank Giller Prize

Shortlisted for the 2023 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize

Shortlisted for the 2023 Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes

Longlisted for the 2023 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction

Longlisted for the 2022 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

Shortlisted for the 2023 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize

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.