TALI NOHKATI, A Piece of Earth Under the Stars: Tome II (following 2019’s Tali Nohkati: The Great Crossing, from French author Koza Belleli, translated into English by Dorine Heller) opens with a scene reminiscent of ancient creation myths: a woman lying on a buffalo hide, giving birth to twins, while two primordial beings—Coyote, a trickster god, and his companion, the Moon—look on. Over the woman’s protests, the Moon takes the newborn infants away, transforming them into the guardians of dawn and dusk and creating the great firmament. Coyote, meanwhile, approaches the woman’s husband and son as they draw water from a nearby river and steals the boy away. The boy is Tali Nohkati, who will grow up to embark upon epic adventures among the world of men, from the frozen north to volcanic islands.

Like the earlier volume, A PIECE OF EARTH UNDER THE STARS is a loose collection of stories written in folkloric style, inspired by North American indigenous cultures (which are unspecified, but the book includes quotes by Chief Seattle from the Pacific Northwest and Aztec leader Cacamatzin). From its opening tale of the creation of the heavens, the book follows Tali, now matured into a chief of his tribe, as he leads his people out of starvation and disease in search of a haven that seems perpetually beyond reach. Tali and his people find shelter among the tribe of Coruba the Ancestor and enjoy a peaceful interlude of hunting and fishing until a dormant volcano erupts and shatters their island. They find a sole survivor among the ruins, a miracle child named Chepi, who becomes central to the tribe’s journey as they flee into an unknown and hostile frontier.

Heller’s translation of Belleli’s text beautifully conveys the lyrical simplicity of folklore (“When the Moon comes, she also lingers, revealing her red face, like a blazing shield in the darkness”), although its impressionistic style, skipping from one story to another with a minimum of connective tissue, often feels disjointed and vague. The translation suffers from occasional blemishes, such as misspelled words (“Boruca” instead of “Coruba”) and clumsy syntax (“the sun went down when he found her”), but is otherwise polished and evocative. A captivating adventure tale rendered with the dreamlike flow of a prose poem, A PIECE OF EARTH UNDER THE STARS is a hypnotic work of modern mythmaking that captures the ageless spirituality of the natural world.

A captivating adventure tale rendered with the dreamlike delicacy of a prose poem, TALI NOHKATI, A Piece of Earth Under the Stars: Tome II, is a hypnotic work of modern mythmaking that captures the ageless spirituality of the natural world.

~Edward Sung for IndieReader