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A New York Times Book Review Summer Read Pick o A Washington Post Noteworthy Book of the Month o One of Booklist's Top 10 Historical Fiction Debuts o One of Publishers Weekly's Writers to Watch o Named a Most Anticipated Book by The Millions, Ms. Magazine, and Bustle o Winner of the Banff Mountain Book Award o 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 o 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.
About this Author
Tsering Yangzom Lama holds a BA in creative writing and international relations from the University of British Columbia, and an MFA from Columbia University. Born and raised in Nepal, Lama has lived in Toronto, New York City, and Vancouver, where she now resides. We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies is her first novel, and it was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the Toronto Book Award, and the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction.
Reviews
A New York Times Book Review Summer Read Pick o A Washington Post Noteworthy Book of the Month o One of Booklist's Top 10 Historical Fiction Debuts o One of Publishers Weekly's Writers to Watch o Named a Most Anticipated Book by The Millions, Ms. Magazine, and Bustle o Winner of the Banff Mountain Book Award o 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 o Longlisted for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and the Toronto Book Award.
"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
"Sometimes fiction can be so emotionally revealing and powerful that it gets to the heart of an experience in ways no non-fiction can match. We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies is such a novel. Writing of the tragedy of Tibet after the Chinese invasion, the drama of escape, the plight of exile with its inevitable losses and compromises and finally of the power of love and redemption, this extraordinary book is both a heartbreakingly intimate personal story and a sweeping, page-turning narrative of cultural threat and moral fightback which will leave no reader unmoved."
--2023 Banff Mountain Book Award Jury Citation
"We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies showcases a writer of rare talent and uncompromising vision. In these pages that speak of exile and loss, of longing and sorrow, Tsering Lama also manages to remind us-with startling beauty and compassion - how much can still survive. This novel is a testament to a people's resolve to love, no matter what. A triumph."
--Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King
"Tsering Yangzom Lama's debut announces a thrilling new talent in global literature. A gorgeous, thoughtful novel, one that wrestles with history and culpability in ways that feel moving and profound."
--Victor LaValle, author of The Changeling
"A true polished gem of a novel, every sentence is a revelation. Built out of both myth and history, Tsering Lama's first novel marks the debut of a stunning new voice."
--Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story and Lake Success
"[A] heartfelt and magical saga of a Tibetan family's love, sacrifice, and heritage ... Lama imbues this mesmerizing tale--informed by her own family fleeing Tibet for Nepal in the 1960s--with a rich sense of history, mysticism, and ritual."
--Publishers Weekly
"This symphonic novel sweeps like a long wave to its transcendent, devastating conclusion. A story about the violence of exile, but also about the bright threads of love that tie these characters to their culture, their ancestral land, and each other: an intelligent, adaptable love that offers them their survival. Sentence by sentence, Lama builds an unforgettable world, sharpened by the force of her characters' longing. You must hand your heart over to this astonishing novel--it will be better for the breaking."
--Shruti Swamy, author of The Archer and A House Is a Body
"[An] achingly beautiful debut."
--Booklist (starred review)
"Tsering Lama's wise and devastating debut implores readers to consider what it means to live in exile, what it feels like to never belong. Through the heartbreaking, yet hopeful story of one Tibetan family's struggle to survive and their yearning for liberation, she delivers a stirring love letter to a country and culture. We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies captured my heart and mind. A must-read and a marvel."
--Jessamine Chan, author of The School for Good Mothers
"We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies asks what happens when colonialism and cruelty take your homeland. Is it gone forever? What remains in the mind and heart? Can loss be restored? A haunting novel of family and exile, written with beauty, authenticity, and grace."
--David Ebershoff, author of The Danish Girl and The 19th Wife
"The novel thrives as a story about sisterhood, parenthood, and the heart-piercing feeling of exile ... A smart, sweeping story about the abuse and transformation of a culture stripped of its country."
--Kirkus Reviews
"Lama is an emotionally nuanced writer. In the novel, ire and elucidation are finely balanced, underscoring ideas of unity and sacrifice. Mythological motifs are woven into the narrative. We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies serves as a witness to the struggles of Tibetan exiles, and details unspoken interior lives shaped by geopolitical strife."
--Quill & Quire
"This wildly beautiful novel, epic in scale, moves back and forth in time and across continents as it traces three generations of a Tibetan family and tells the story of their lives as exiles. The narrative, which begins with China's 1959 invasion of Tibet, is gorgeously structured, the story told with tenderness and with a restrained but felt passion that makes the lives of its characters--their individuality as well as the cultural, historical, and familial bonds that shape their destinies--palpable. This is a magnificently textured and deeply affecting novel."
--Jay Neugeboren, author and former guest editor, Ploughshares
"A beautiful work of vulnerability and longing."
--Her Campus
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