The Last Quarter of the Moon: A novel from the Vintage Earth collection

A poetic, mystical story of a tribe of Evenki people living their lives in Northern China. Told by an unnamed 90-year old woman reciting her life story this is set in a time of change when Civilization encroaches into the mountain regions.I enjoyed this story. This is a story to be read. It's sad to see these wonderful ways of life disappearing into cities and paved roads.

Empfehlenswert um zu verstehen wie eine Minderheit in China lebte, und sich den Zeiten anpaßte - schön erzählt

The product arrived earlier than expected. The novel is a good read. I hope Amazon acquire this book, and ship it from the US.

This is a beautiful beautiful poetic book. I started it on a flight, thinking "I'll read a chapter and then have a nap". Four hours later I was glued to it, reading as I walked off the plane. You will never forget the voice of this narrator. It's a life on the page. It's the life of a whole way of life on the page.In summary it's nothing more than an old old lady surrounded by her trinkets, reminiscing about family, friends, homes, loves, deaths. She tells you her story and she transports you utterly. Through time, geographically, into a community like no other. You feel like you're sitting in her hut, on her reindeer skins, by the fire, with the wind and snow flapping the door behind you.Please read it.

This story is told by a 90 year old Evenki woman who has decided to remain with the ancestral way of life in the forest, while the rest of her extended group has just left for a fixed settlement.This is quite an achievement - you get a very vivid sense of a different way of life and the trials and tribulations of being subject to taboos, which can wreck your life, and of the mishaps and misfortunes of the way of life (you mistake one of your friends for a deer, you are attacked by a bear or you fall asleep on your reindeer and freeze to death), and of the man-made misfortunes (the war with the Japanese invasion and occupation; deforestation and its impact on the traditional way of life). You also get a clear side of the upsides of this way of life, living very close to nature as well as very close to the edge and the strong ties as well as enmities in the group with whom you live.That said, I found I read this over an extended period - it was not a page turner. Having read the 'morning' section, it was good, however, to return for the 'mid-day' section and later the evening (the period relating to the periods of the day in which the narrative is set, and also to the periods of the narrator's life).