Author Description

"Wolf Totem was released in China in 2004. Written under the pen name Jiang Rong, the quasi autobiographical novel describing a young Han Chinese student's experience living in Inner Mongolia became an overnight sensation, breaking all sales records and selling millions of copies. Now, beautifully translated by Howard Goldblatt, the foremost translator of Chinese fiction, this fascinating book is available in English. Wolf Totem opens in 1960s China during the Cultural Revolution. Searching for spirituality, Beijing intellectual Chen Zhen travels to the pristine grasslands of Inner Mongolia to live among the nomadic Mongols--a proud, brave, and ancient race of people who coexist in perfect harmony with their beautiful but exacting natural environment. At the core of their belief is the notion of a triangular balance between the earth, the wolf, and man, whose fates are all intricately linked. There is prosperity and abundance when the three work together; when they are at cross purposes with each other, there is blight and suffering. The fierce wolves that haunt the steppes of the unforgiving grassland searching for food are locked with the nomads in a profoundly spiritual battle for survival--a life-and-death dance that has gone on between them for thousands of years. The Mongols believe that the wolf is a great and worthy foe that they are divinely instructed to contend with, but also to worship and to learn from. By adopting a wolf cub of his own, Chen's fascination with them blossoms into obsession, and ultimately reverence. But then the peace is shattered with the arrival of Chen's kinsfolk--Han Chinese, sent from the cities to bring modernity to Inner Mongolia. The age-old balance is disrupted, and life on the grasslands will never be the same. Part period epic, part fable for modern days, Wolf Totem is a stinging social commentary on the dangers of China's overaccelerated economic growth, and a heady immersion into the heart of Chinese and Mongolian culture."