A Dream in Polar Fog is at once a cross-cultural journey, an ethnographic fable and chronicle of the Chukchi people and a breathtaking adventure story. It is the story of John MacLellan, a young Canadian sailor who is left behind by his ship, stranded among the native people of the arctic coast. It is the story of one Chukchi community that adopts a crippled stranger and teaches him to live as a “true human being.” During the long winter, John comes to know his new companions—first as untutored primitives, then in the romantic light of noble savages and finally as a real people who share the best and worst of human traits with his own kind. Tragedy strikes, and a life is lost and re-given; a man rises to take the place of a boy; wounds are healed with compassion, honesty and love. And when difficult times loom ahead, it is his new family that John will fight to preserve. Rytkheu’s empathetic voice guides us across the magnificent landscape of the North and reveals all the complexity and beauty of a vanishing world.
Born in Uelen, a village in the Chukotka region, Yuri Rytkheu has sailed the Bering Sea, worked on Arctic geological expeditions and hunted whale in arctic waters, in addition to authoring over 10 novels and collections of stories. In the 1950s, Rytkheu emerged as not only a writer of considerable literary talent, but as the unique voice of a small national minority—the Chukchi people. His novels and short stories about Chukotka and the Chukchi introduced generations of readers to the history and mythology of those who call one of the most majestic and inhospitable environments on earth their home. Bestsellers in Germany and Switzerland, Rytkheu’s works are also well-loved in Japan, Denmark and France.

A Dream in Polar Fog

Literature & Fiction

Rytkheu, Yuri

United States

Archipelago Books

“Rarely has humanity’s relationship to nature been so beautifully and vividly depicted. A Dream in Polar Fog is both elegant and exciting and also serves as a living anthropology of a gone world. It accomplishes everything a novel should.”––Neal Pollack
 A Dream in Polar Fog is at once a cross-cultural journey, an ethnographic chronicle of the Chukchi people, and a politically and emotionally charged Arctic adventure story.

By the celebrated author of A Dream in Polar Fog, a collection of the myths and stories of Yuri Rytkheu’s own family that is at once a moving history of the Chukchi people who inhabit the northern shores of the Bering Sea and a beautiful cautionary tale rife with conflict, human drama, and humor. We meet fantastic characters: Nau, the mother of the human race; Rau, her half-whale husband; and Rytkheu’s own grandfather, fated to be an intrepid traveler, far-ranging whaler, living ethnographic exhibit, and the last shaman of Uelen. The Chukchi Bible moves through vast Arctic tundra, sea, and sky – and to places deep within ourselves—introducing readers, in vivid prose, to an extraordinary mythology and a resilient people.

The Chukchi Bible

Literary

Archipelago

Nau cannot remember a time when she was not one with the world around her: with the fast breeze, the green grass, the high clouds, and the endless blue sky above the Shingled Spit. But her greatest joy is to visit the sea, where whales gather every morning to gaily spout rainbows. Then, one day, she finds a man in the mist where a whale should be: Reu, who has taken human form out of his Great Love for her. Together these first humans become parents to two whales, and then to mankind. Even after Reu dies, Nau continues on, sharing her story of brotherhood between the two species. But as these origins grow more distant, the old woman's tales are subsumed into myth--and her descendants turn increasingly bent on parading their dominance over the natural world. Buoyantly translated into English for the first time by Ilona Yazhbin Chavasse, this new entry in the Seedbank series is at once a vibrant retelling of the origin story of the Chukchi, a timely parable about the destructive power of human ego--and another unforgettable work of fiction from Yuri Rytkheu, "arguably the foremost writer to emerge from the minority peoples of Russia's far north" (New York Review of Books).

When the Whales Leave (Seedbank)

MILKWEED EDITIONS *

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Rytkheu, Yuri. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Rytkheu, Yuri

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Rytkheu, Yuri. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

A Dream in Polar Fog

A Dream in Polar Fog

The Chukchi Bible

When the Whales Leave (Seedbank)