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The New York Public Library presents
a new book

Shanar: Dedication Ritual
of a Buryat Shaman

by Virlana Tkacz,
Sayan Zhambalov
& Wanda Phipps
with photos by
Alexander Khantaev, which recently won the Benjamin Franklin Award


Tompkins Square Branch Library
331 East 10th St
New York City

Wednesday,
June 11, 2003


The evening will feature
a talk by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps,
readings and Buryat songs from the book performed by Meredith Wright and Akiko Hiroshima
and an exhibit of photographs from the book by Alexander Khantaev.


In Eastern Sibeira, near the radiant blue water of Lake Baikal, live the Buryats, an indigenous people little known to the Western world. After seveenty years of religious suppression and persecution by the Soviet government they are once more free to pursue their tradtional spiritual practices.

Shanar: Dedication Ritual of a Buryat Shaman in Sibeira is a detailed, intimate account of one of htese riutals: the Shanar, in which a shaman first contacts the ancestral spirits and receivged power. The officiating shaman, Bayir Rinchinov, invited the authors to attend and record the ritual, allowing the outside world an unprecedented view of this ceremony.

The authors of the book Shanar: Dedication Ritual of a Buryat Shaman in Siberia, Virlana Tkacz, Sayan Zhambalov and Wanda Phipps have been translating Buryat poetry into English since 1996. Their translations have been performed at the La MaMa Experimental Theatre and the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church in New York and were published by Agni Review, Terra Nova, Two Lines and Shaman's Drum. They have received New York State Council on the Arts Translations Grants, as well as the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry Translation Award for their work.

Alexander Khantaev's photographs have appeared in numerous publications in Buryatia and he has exhibited with the Union of Photographers of Buryatia. He has had two personal exhibits in New York. Portraits of Siberian Shamans was shown at the Open Space Gallery in Saratoga Springs and at La MaMa Galleria in New York City in the spring of 2001. Last April Mr. Khantaev showed Meetings in Mongolia at the Open Space Gallery in Saratoga Springs and the Permanent Mission of Mongolia to the UN in New York City.


  • See more on the Kyiv presentation and photo exhibit
  • Also see Daniel Macisaac's article in Kyiv Post "Buryat Ritual Captured on Film, in Words"
  • Book is available from www.parabola.org or from www.amazon.com
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