The wolf, the totem of the nomadic Mongols, is the true subject of this sprawling novel about a Han Chinese student who volunteers to live in Inner Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution. What Chen Zhen learns from his new neighbors, in harsh circumstances, is the centrality of the wolf not only to the vitality of the grasslands but to the human spirit. Wolf Totem, a runaway bestseller and winner of the 2007 Man Asian Literary Prize, is an elegy to a way of life—and a biting commentary on the drive to modernize. “Wolves follow the wind,” Mongols say. And now the wind carries the dust of what was once a fertile landscape as far as Los Angeles—and beyond.