![]() ![]() ![]() Gourlay is an accomplished novelist who looks to explore different challenges in every book, all springing from her own background. The isolation – even the tribes have little real knowledge of each other – the lush landscape, and presiding over all the Tree of Bones, the avatar guiding thoughts and ideas. Pervading the novel is the sense of place. But Samkad is a boy we can recognise, telling his story with an immediacy that opens a door to understanding. Superficially they are unfamiliar, strange perhaps. We see their beliefs, their preoccupations, their practices through Samkad’s eyes. ![]() ![]() Gourlay introduces us to Samkad and his people still living according to the patterns that have been followed for ages. This is a story that does not appear in our history books – but the parallels are clear. Samkad suddenly finds himself facing terrifying new ideas …as he says “I had not known it possible for there to be people with hair a colour other than black…”īooks – stories – can take the reader anywhere and here Candy Gourlay transports us to the other side of the world, the Philippines. But his journey to the Tree of Bones is not smooth his life is turned upside down when an American arrives in the village. Samkad is elated and nervous his father has just told him he is become a man. What happens when two cultures meet head on? It is 1899, Bontok in the Cordilleras in the Philippines. ![]()
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