Kuraj

Naja is born in the late 1930s on the Central Asian steppe, the daughter of a clan chieftain of the Tushan nomads, who are proud descendants of Genghis Khan. Her fiercely independent father, U'lan, hears of Stalin's plan to bring the Tushan under state control and settle them permanently on collective farms. He pledges to join forces with the invading German army.

This pledge of honor takes him to the hell of Stalingrad. It also changes Naja's life for good, bringing her at the age of nine to ruined postwar Cologne. There she has to adapt to an unfamiliar culture and to the strange family that has taken her in.

As Naja grows more comfortable in this alien world, the memories of her early life on the steppe keep calling to her. She begins a difficult search for her own past and for that of her people. Her only talisman and guide is the word kuraj, which means tumbleweed in Tushan.

The book is a historical novel about a nomadic girl's search for home.