One afternoon, in an old house in an abandoned village on the outskirts of Perimeter, in the place they call Pacifica, Bramah and the beggar boy find fragments of an ancient text. Hunched over scraps of parchment and broken computer disks, they blow the dust off a cover, and so our story begins. Many things happen--some good, but mostly bad--including five eco-catastrophes and a viral bio-contagion.

Steeped in the tradition of fairy tales, THOT J BAP (The Heart of This Journey Bears All Patterns) is a map-history of a world in which a small band of eco-survivors faces heartbreak and destruction. Speculative fiction meets rhymes and chants, soulful characters and a playful reimagining of the saga as a portent for our planet earth. Shapeshifting in and out of it all is the nimble Bramah, a female locksmith--brown, brave and beautiful. Ten years in the making and described as "truly ambitious" by Stephen Collis, this work by award-winning poet Ren e Sarojini Saklikar spans continents and centuries. Bramah and the Beggar Boy is the first instalment of the multi-part series.