"Tenderly perceptive....A resounding affirmation of humanity and what it holds dearest, from one of our most gifted storytellers."— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Thousands of years in the future, all the northern hemisphere is buried under the ice and snow of a new Ice Age. At the southern end of a large landmass called Ifrik, two children of the Mahondi people, seven-year old Mara and her younger brother, Dann, are abducted from their home in the middle of the night. Raised as outsiders in a poor rural village, Mara and Dann learn to survive the hardships and dangers of a life threatened as much by an unforgiving climate and menacing animals as by a hostile community of Rock People. Eventually they join the great human migration North, away from the drought that is turning the southern land to dust, and in search of a place with enough water and food to support human life. Traveling across the continent, the siblings enter cities rife with crime, power struggles, and corruption, learning as much about human nature as about how societies function. With a clear-eyed vision of the human condition, Mara and Dann is imaginative fiction at its best.
"A gripping adventure novel..Lessing is at the top of her form, blending ideas and action in a splendid, imaginative tale." — The Oregonian (Portland)
"A hegira of hardships and dangers..provocative and stimulating." — Newsday
"A substantial achievement, the latest remarkable book from a seemingly inexhaustible writer." — Boston Globe
"A substantial achievement, the latest remarkable book from a seemingly inexhaustible writer..There is a serious case to be made for placing Lessing's science fiction at the center of her oeuvre." — Boston Globe
"Doris Lessing remains one of contemporary fiction's genuine thinkers and visionaries, and it would be folly to ignore her." — Kirkus Reviews
"Mara and Dann has the shape of a myth or a folktale....But the book's proportions are those of an epic....Vividly rendered." — New York Times Book Review
"Provocative and stimulating." — Los Angeles Times
"Tenderly perceptive....A resounding affirmation of humanity and what it holds dearest, from one of our most gifted storytellers." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"On the surface a grand adventure, this novel at its heart makes a fascinating argument for the force of affection and the power of the questioning mind." — The New Yorker
