![]() ![]() Last year, your Earth’s Children® series was published for the first time as e-books, a concept that was completely unknown when you began your career. Jean Auel recently answered questions from Chapter 16 via email prior to her Nashville appearance on April 13.Ĭhapter 16: In the early 1980s, the talk of the publishing industry was the phenomenal and somewhat unexpected success of The Clan of the Cave Bear and its much anticipated sequel, The Valley of Horses. In so doing, she illustrates how community and culture develop through the dissemination of specialized knowledge and skills from one group to another within a stable and harmonious society. She provides an intricate framework of religious beliefs, sexual practices, social protocols, and shared prohibitions. ![]() When the spiritual leader of the Zelandonii chooses Ayla to be her acolyte, events are set in motion that will test the young woman intellectually, physically, and emotionally-and ultimately bring challenging new changes to the people of her adopted home.Īuel imagines the lifestyle of her characters in exacting detail as they hunt large animals with hand tools, explore sacred caves decorated by ancient ancestors, raft raging rivers, travel long distances, and perform mating rituals. Her attachment to Wolf sets her apart from her husband’s people, the Zelandonii, as does her way with horses, strange accent, ability to defend herself and to hunt, and extensive knowledge of medicinal plants. This sixth installment in the series finds Ayla happily mated to Jondalar, the mother of young Jonayla, and friend to Wolf, raised by her hand and consequently her fierce protector. But Ayla’s keen intelligence and indomitable spirit give her the strength to turn difficult circumstances into opportunities for growth, and her kindness, humility, and beauty draw others to her in spite of her strangeness. Born into one culture yet raised in a very different world, she struggles throughout the story to find her place in the Europe of the Ice Age. Orphaned at a young age and reluctantly adopted into a Neanderthal tribe-the Mamutoi-Ayla is the eternal outsider. They come back to follow the exciting journey of Ayla, her Cro Magnon protagonist. With The Land of Painted Caves, the sixth and final installment in the Earth’s Children® series, Auel is poised to set new records all over the world, with simultaneous publication in seventeen countries.īut statistics are not what has kept Auel’s fans enthralled all these years. In the process, the Earth’s Children® series, which opened with the unexpected 1980 bestseller, The Clan of the Cave Bear, became one of the most surprising and ground-breaking Cinderella stories in publishing history.ĭuring the course of her lengthy career, this unassuming wife and mother from Portland, Oregon, has generated some impressive literary statistics: worldwide sales of forty-five million copies (twenty-two million in the United States alone) the highest advance ever paid for a debut novel the first hardcover novel with a first printing of more than one million copies five New York Times bestsellers, four of which achieved the list’s top spot and translation of her work into thirty-five languages. That “story” turned into an outline for six books-a series of novels that would take Auel more than thirty years to finish. Although she had not written for publication before, she quit her job to write a story about a woman who didn’t fit in. In 1977, at the age of forty, Jean Auel took a leap of faith.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |