Braken Fences, Wolf Kurtoglu’s first novel, has been described as ‘masterful’ (the Blether Region) and ‘the best novel written in Scots in recent times’ (Rab Wilson, Lallans). You can now enjoy listening to this ‘epic tale with believable characters’ in a year long series of exclusive fortnightly podcasts.

The story so far: Beatrice Varshini is returning from a posting deep within the Fundamentalist Zone (FZ), where the Rational World (RW) maintains an old nuclear reactor at Nilyulgun in the Tien Shan. She survives an air-crash on the ither side of the Taklamakan Desert, along with Bill Henderson. Beatrice taks up with a band of brigands, and finds herself an object of interest both to Hsien, a Chinese man who was blinded as a child to accommodate his genetically engineered ability to see heat, and a Neanderthal, Ragoran (Raggle). Raggle’s version of their past is told as if they had stepped out of prehistory, not out of a genetics lab.

Bill sets off alone, but is caught and sold into slavery in a mine. The slaves are rescued by the brigands, and Hsien helps two boys to escape the general slaughter. They are Wu-Yun and Bai-Yun, the twin sons of the mining engineer, whom Bill had become friendly with. As a belated consequence of this, Hsien gets flung out of the band of brigands. Beatrice (now expecting Hsien’s baby), Bill, Hsien’s sidekick Iskander, and the healer Guzul stay on with him at a lamasery. Despairing of ever getting back to the RW, Bill takes to distilling spirits, and frets about what has happened to Nusiret. Nusiret was another slave in the mine, a Uigher girl in disguise as a lad. She is part of a conspiracy to spread a contraceptive weed among women oppressed by fundamentalism.

Beatrice has a normal baby boy, which is a great relief, since nobody knows whether Hsien’s heat sense is heritable. Bill, Beatrice and Hsien, with the baby, set off to try to get back into the nuclear plant. They go on the road as hawkers.

Back in Delhi, Beatrice’s grandfather, thinking she’s dead, is persuaded by Guangwu Bang’s shady Tibetan refugee network to donate her identity to his protegée Rongye, an illegal Tibetan immigrant. Word gets back to Rongye that a woman survived the air-crash, and she sets off across Tibet in the hope that it might be Beatrice. Beatrice’s grandfather goes with her as far as Lhasa.

A date for your diary:  the first part of Chapter 10 will be podcast on 9 May 2013.

Wulf has a blog here where you can find further information about the novel. The novel can be bought here.