The story of a Kazakh clan over the course of a century. Dekulakization, war, the turbulent nineties of Perestroika, personal losses and small victories—through the eyes of women from three generations. The eldest of them, Akbalzhan, was married off at sixteen to save herself from famine. What made her flee into the unknown with two small children? Will she find love and happiness? Can she preserve herself—her mother tongue, her mother’s tales and songs—in a foreign country, and pass them on to her daughters? And what force will, sixty years later, draw her granddaughter back to the land of her ancestors? Based on real events, with elements of artistic fiction.