"From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret. Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India's Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least...

The story of Wang Lung, the family he founded, the gods he implored, and, above all, the earth that sustained him, the land that he made to prosper against the ravages of nature and the savage attacks of bandit tribes.

Difficult and disturbing stories are best presented orally since oral performance allows the listener an implicit collaborative role in the story. Narrative is the backbone of storytelling, but images are the fundamental building blocks of a performance. In order to develop the vivid mental images the storyteller creates the mental equivalent of a movie. To do this with the material in the Norse epic Vlsunga Saga means assembling information concerning...