The Transformation

A powerful novel about the meeting of two very different cultures in fifteenth-century Greenland

For several years, the Inuits in Greenland, the "Human Beings," as they call themselves, have suffered from unusually hard winters that do not let up even in what should be summertime. Navarana, a young Inuit woman, has lost both her parents to these terrible times of starvation and desperation. She decides to become a hunter and a shaman, a spirit guide, to help her people. Then she accidentally finds and reluctantly saves a stranger, Brendan, a young Irish monk. He has come to Greenland to help the Christian community and convert the "heathens." But the Christian community has disintegrated and, one by one, his fellow monks have died. Both proud and stubborn, Brendan and Navarana are immediately at odds. Gradually, however, as they learn more about each other, they develop a mutual respect. And Brendan is chosen to accompany Navarana on her perilous journey to bring back the sun.