Sky Burial

London: Vintage. Near Fine. 2005. Reprint; Ninth Printing. Paperback. 130 X 14 X 197 millimeters . Minor reading creases and shelf wear. ; Ninth printing of Vintage paperback edition, 2005. Nice tight copy, no names or marks inside. Cover design uncredited incorporating images courtsey of J, Brown/AFP/Getty and Galen Rowell/Corbis. ; 176 pages; Author's follow up to The Good Women of China. As a young girl in China Xinran heard a rumour about a soldier in Tibet who had been brutally fed to the vultures in a ritual known as a sky burial: the tale frightened and fascinated her. Several decades later Xinran met Shu Wan, a Chinese woman who had spent years searching for her missing husband, Kejun, after he disappeared in Tibet; her extraordinary life story would unravel the legend of the sky burial. For thirty years she was lost in the wild and alien landscape of Tibet, in the vast and silent plateaux and the magisterial mountain ranges, living with communities of nomads moving with the seasons and struggling to survive. In this haunting book, Xinran recreates Shu Wen's remarkable journey in an epic story of love, loss, loyalty and survival. Moving, shocking and, ultimately, uplifting Sky Burial paints a unique portrait of a woman and a land, both at the mercy of fate and politics. .