Unfortunately people and tribes degenerate. They lose their teeth, forget their language, until finally they're bending meekly on the fields and cutting straw with a scythe.
Leemut, a young boy growing up in the forest, is content living with his hunter-gatherer family. But when incomprehensible outsiders arrive aboard ships and settle nearby, with an intriguing new religion, the forest begins to empty - people are moving to the village and breaking their backs tilling fields to make bread. Meanwhile, Leemut and the last forest-dwelling humans refuse to adapt: with bare-bottomed primates and their love of ancient traditions, promiscuous bears, and a single giant louse, they live in shacks, keep wolves, and speak to snakes.
Told with moving and satirical prose, The Man Who Spoke Snakish is a fiercely imaginative allegory about a boy, and a nation, standing on the brink of dramatic change.
- ISBN10 161185539X
- ISBN13 9781611855395
- Publish Date 1 September 2016 (first published 3 November 2015)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 9 November 2022
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press
- Edition Main
- Format Paperback
- Pages 448
- Language English