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.
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