Stories from the past are woven together with the problems Windisch, the village miller, faces after he applies for permission to migrate to West Germany. Herta Müller (Herta Mueller) describes with poetic attention the dreams and superstitions, conflicts and oppression of a forgotten region, the Banat, in the Danube Plain. In sparse, poetic language, Muller captures the forlorn plight of a trapped people.

    Brilliant physicist Amanda Jaworski is in training to be the first person to journey to Mars. With her magic cat, Schrodinger, Amanda soon finds herself doing battle with the greatest seductress of all, the Eleven Million Mile High Dancer, a being from 40 million light years away.