I’m enjoying Vitebsky’s work – more of an anthropology work than many non-fiction award winners – and the dominant sense is the forcible collapse of the nomadic Tungus pastoralists in the last half of the 20th century by imperial Soviet Russia.
Rereading an old Delany space opera from the mid sixties with strong linguistics theme: a poet/linguist encounters fragments of an ET language that changes the way her mind works. A precursor to some of the thinking behind Snow Crash. I’m halfway through, and thankfully I don’t recall what happens.
