The Last Wild Horses

Przewalski’s horses, the last wild horses on Earth, are stocky in appearance, have 66 chromosomes instead of the 64 that domestic horses have, and are almost extinct. In her new novel, best-selling Norwegian author Lunde (The History of Bees) uses these rare horses to link three narratives. The book begins in 2064. Eva and her daughter live on the family farm near an abandoned town in Norway, and environmental disasters have forced most of the world’s population to migrate north. However, to ensure the survival of the Przewalski’s horses that live on her farm, Eva refuses to leave. The second narrative takes place in St. Petersburg in 1884 and focuses on a zoo’s assistant director, Mikhail Alexandrovich Kovrov. After learning about the existence of the wild horses in Mongolia, Kovrov puts together an expedition and captures 16 horses for zoos in Europe. The last narrative describes the efforts of Karin, a German veterinarian who in 1992 brings several wild horses to Mongolia for the purpose of reintroducing them into the wild.