Mara and Dann
by Doris Lessing
Mara and Dann's journey begins when they are young children interrogated by "the bad man" and swiftly whisked away by rescuers from the only home they ever knew into the drought-ridden perils of Ifrik. Told to forget their real names forever or be killed, the brother and sister live for years among the primitive Rock People, taken in by one of their own kind but always outcasts. As the drought worsens, Dann takes off with some refugees going North where it is believed everything is better. For years Mara survives in the Rock Village visiting ruins telling of a people so much more technologically advanced and learning from her protector what little she can. When the village is down to just Mara and her dying protector, Dann returns older, more experienced, but darker and haunted. He saves Mara from starvation but the journey North is fraught with perils; giant man-eating lizards and spiders, travelers desperate enough to kill, and always thirst. Yet there are machines that can fly, or some that used to but now are just pushed and they ride to a city where they are immediately taken as slaves. Thus begins the next phase of their journey ever northward where Mara learns more of the world and Dann succumbs to his demons and the poppy. The drought is coming and Mara knows it, but the Kin there are soft and won't believe her. What follows is the story of a brother and sister, of a woman with a quest for knowledge and understanding and her younger brother fighting his past. Today's world is thousands of years in the past mostly buried under ice, but what is left in the ruins is like a fire burning in Mara to learn more. This fascinating survival tale says a lot about our modern times and just how precarious they may be.
