A Condor Brings the Sun - Hardcover

McGahan, Jerry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0871563541 ISBN 13: 9780871563545

Publisher: Sierra Club Books, 1996

Synopsis

According to an Andean native legend, a condor carries the sun each day out of a sacred lake and into the sky. In a feat of storytelling imbued with the wonder of that daily miracle, Jerry McGahan opens up the living heart of the ancient Runa culture with the luminous story of Pilar, a young woman from the mountain village of Wasi.

As the living archive of her peoples history, Pilar has memorized twenty-three stories, one from each of tier foremothers in an unbroken line reaching back to the Incas. The ancient lessons for withstanding outsiders -- the "peeled ones" -- suffuse almost every ritual of the Runa. but the arrival of Shining Path terrorists forces them to ask once more how much they are willing to sacrifice to preserve their ways.

When Pilar meets Arnie, an American biologist studying the spectacled bear in Peru, she is already the reluctant protagonist in her own story. Soon, Arnie and his American friends find themselves caught in a bizarre scheme. unable to resist the power of a woman so incomparably certain of who she is and from where she has come.

Against tile backdrop of two cultures, this tale explores the harmony and the conflicts between men and women, tradition and progress, and people and nature. With powerful lyrical prose it delivers great sweeps of time and distance yet also evokes the immediacy of the moment, illuminating the elusive power of beauty and the immutable core of desire.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"Jerry McGahan's A Condor Brings the Sun is about history, about exile, about belonging. In telling the story of Pilar, he presents us with a story of many Americas, and how those Americas are in conflict with one another. But if this novel is about conflict, it is mostly about survival, not only Pilar's survival, but the survival of the earth to which she belongs. Mr. McGahan's prose is as wise as it is luminous -- he has written a beautiful and compelling tale, a tale about healing, a tale we need to hear at the end of this century, of destruction."

-- Benjamin Alire Saenz author of Carry Me Like Water

"McGahan brings the world of the Runa to extraordinary life, weaving generational voices, cultures, and landscapes into a story that grabs you by the guts, heart, and brain in one astounding surge. This is a brilliant achievement, a novel that combines the often fatal sweep of Western history, with the timeless circle of the Indian Andes, that merges magic, revolutionary violence, and the rich everyday lives of people trying simply to live and remember who they are."

-- Louis Owens author of Bone Game

About the Author

Jerry McGahan has published short fiction in the Georgia Review, Iowa Review, and Northern Lights. He has a Ph.D. in zoology and has written about the Andean condor for scientific journals and National Geographic. He and his wife and children keep bees in Arlee, Montana.

About this edition

• Publisher: Sierra Club Books
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0871563541
• ISBN 13: 9780871563545
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 266