Bowa is a young boy of the Tujia ethnic minority living in a small village outside Chongqing. A severe speech impediment means he can’t string two words together until after the age of ten, which prevents him from going to school and causes his fellow villagers, family and acquaintances to write him off as silly or dumb.

But not being able to speak doesn’t stop him from dreaming and imagining. With the help of an enlightened supply teacher, who has volunteered to teach in this remote mountainous area, and help from a little white crane he befriends along the way, he eventually overcomes his speech impediment revealing a veritable child prodigy beneath the surface…

Ku Jin is an award-winning author of central China’s Tujia ethnicity and a member of both the China and Chongqing Writers’ Associations. He has been published in various literary journals, and his writing has also appeared in a number of anthologies, including the China Writers' Association’s Selection of Chinese Minority Literature in the New Century. Wu Jiamei is a researcher and associate professor at Sichuan International Studies University. She has translated several English-language novels into Chinese, including Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear, Darling, Mercy Dog of World War I by Alice Leonhardt, and The Princess in Black series by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale. Her translations from Chinese to English include After the Finale by Zhou Daxin, Cloud Farming by Chone Yum Tsering, White Crane Boy by Ku Jin, and Slowly the River Flows by Huang Zheng. In 2019, she won third prize in the Chongqing Translators Association’s Excellence in Translation Awards. She currently lives and works in Chongqing.