We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies

In the wake of China’s invasion of Tibet throughout the 1950s Lhamo and her younger sister Tenkyi arrive at a refugee camp in Nepal. They survived the dangerous journey across the Himalayas but their parents did not. As Lhamo—haunted by the loss of her homeland and her mother a 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 known 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. 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 its scope and powerful in its intimacy 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 novel provides a nuanced moving portrait of the littleknown world of Tibetan exiles.