"He realized that this was what happiness was all along, the indescribable joy of giving everything to achieve a goal."

Born on the Ordos Plateau, Inner Mongolia in 1950, Hasibagen has a deep love for the land beneath his feet. He has an even deeper love for every living being, every Mongolian, especially, who came into this world there and has grown up there too, and who despite the constant shifting of the world has always retained its loving and generous nature: whether that be the old man and his family in Homeland of Wolves and Songs who stand fast in the depths of the desert; or the plain yet wise Baorihu in The Depths of Heilonggui Desert; or the resourceful and shrewd Taolimu village head in Re-education, each of these figures holds, unwavering, to their intention, in what is a clear exposition of what the author considers most beautiful about the Mongolian people: resoluteness.

Throughout the three novellas in this book, Hasibagen's use of dialogue to drive the narrative never falters, and his smooth prose leads the reader around bold twists and turns and through ambitious ups and down without a hitch. The author expels the specter of history, to search out and uncover the shining light of humanity that never goes out, a light which he uses to illuminate the world.

About the author

Mo Hasibagen is an author of Mongolian ethnicity, who was born in Ordos, Inner Mongolia in 1950. He writes in Mongolian. A member of the China Writers Association, he has written the novels Ordos 1943, That Faraway Place, Sullen World, Homeland, and An Ordinary Countryman, as well as more than 120 novellas and short stories, and the script for the TV series Ordos Wedding. He won the Suolongga Award for Literary Creation in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and has been called "a model for self-taught excellence in China."