In the steppes of High Asia, the year 1188…'Jamuqa rode his trophy mare, off-white, black-pointed, on a Tartar seat, high arches of ornamental silver fore and aft. He wore a winterfur of snow leopard, near white with black whorls. The effect was kingly and fantastic: he might be Irle Khan himself, the king of ghosts, in his eery splendour.'Aged twenty, Temujin has been named Tchingis, khan over the Mongols. But only a third of his people accept a kingship based on dreams and omens. His own sworn brother Jamuqa challenges his title, and comes in the guise of a mock king against him.The steppe has been without a great khan for three hundred years – fragmented in the face of giant China. Are dreams and omens enough to unify its peoples? What makes a true king?Amgalant gives voice to the Mongols in their explosive encounter with the great world under Tchingis Khan. Both epic and intimate, Amgalant sees the world through Mongol eyes. It's different from the world you know.'Amgalant brings to life a complex, remote society with amazing immediacy' Bryn Hammond (she/her, and queer) lives in a coastal town in Australia, where she likes to write while walking in the sea. She grew up on ancient and medieval epics, the Arthur cycle original and modern, nineteenth-century novelists, particularly Russian and French, and out of fashion poets, namely Algernon Swinburne. Always a writer – to the neglect of other paths in life that might have been more sensible -- she found the perfect story in The Secret History of the Mongols, a thirteenth-century prose and verse account of Chinggis Khan. Series description:'Amgalant' means unity.This story is about the unification of the steppe under Tchingis Khan. From the shattered condition of the Mongols before him, to 1206 when Tchingis is acknowledged khan over the peoples of the steppe.Amgalant likewise follows Temujin, the boy who becomes Tchingis Khan, from an outcast life of poverty to the achievement of his dreams.The forty years from 1166 to 1206 saw great drama on the steppe, although settled societies off the steppe scarcely noticed. That remains true to this day. Temujin's rise to instatement as Tchingis Khan is the heart and guts of the Secret History of the Mongols, more important to its Mongol creators and audience than the off-steppe conquests afterwards.The Secret History of the Mongols is a gorgeous source for a novelist, rich in human interest and incident. Amgalant follows this source with humble fidelity and faith in the art of the original.
