Wolf Totem

A Novel

No cover

Rong Jiang: Wolf Totem (2008, Penguin Press HC, The)

Hardcover, 544 pages

English language

Published March 27, 2008 by Penguin Press HC, The.

ISBN:
978-1-59420-156-1
Copied ISBN!

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (1 review)

2 editions

Review of 'Wolf Totem' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

As a follow-up to The Good Earth, we'd wanted to read a contemporary book about China, written by a Chinese. What we got was a book, written by a Han Chinese, about Mongolia.

About a Mongolia that no longer exists. One in which the grassland Mongolians were still nomadic herders, shifting their herds of horses and sheep across the vast grassland, in constant battle to protect their animals from the packs of wolves, but realizing that the wolves themselves protected the health of the grassland by keeping all the herbivores in check.

But during the cultural revolution, this ecological equilibrium was seen as one of the old anachronisms that needed to be swept away, along with the wolves and the marmots. And the nomadic life. In the end, the grassland was turned over to farming and the nomads moved to houses with fenced enclosures. And the desert started moving in. …

Subjects

  • Fiction
  • Fiction - Historical
  • Historical - General
  • Fiction / Historical