In 2020, 86-year-old Zeno helps a group of youngsters put the story on as a play at the Lakeport Public Library-unaware that an eco-terrorist is planting a bomb in the building during dress rehearsal. In the 1950s, Zeno Ninis, a troubled ex–GI in Lakeport, Idaho, finds peace in working on a translation of Diogenes' recently recovered manuscript. Omeir, a country boy of the same period, is rejected by the world for his cleft lip-but forms the deepest of connections with his beautiful oxen, Moonlight and Tree. Aethon's story is first found by Anna in 15th-century Constantinople though a failure as an apprentice seamstress, she's learned ancient Greek from an elderly scholar. The protagonist of the original story is Aethon, a shepherd whose dream of escaping to a paradise in the sky leads to a wild series of adventures in the bodies of beast, fish, and fowl. Around Diogenes' manuscript, "Cloud Cuckoo Land"-the author did exist, but the text is invented-Doerr builds a community of readers and nature lovers that transcends the boundaries of time and space. “ Stranger, whoever you are, open this to learn what will amaze you” wrote Antonius Diogenes at the end of the first century C.E.-and millennia later, Pulitzer Prize winner Doerr is his fitting heir. An ancient Greek manuscript connects humanity's past, present, and future.
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