A Feather on the Breath of God

Sigrid Nunez's early novel is the beautifully wrought story of one woman living precariously between cultures. Christa comes of age in the 1960s housing projects of New York. The daughter of a Panamanian-Chinese father and a German mother, her tale is one of haunting un-assimilation. Desperate to escape from her stifling and conflicted home, Christa throws herself into the world of dance, and as she matures, into the world of language and translation. It's only when she begins a passionate affair with one of her Russian students that she realizes how she is still bound to the world of her youth.