The poet travels from her home in the United States to her ancestral village in Shanxi province to bury the ashes of her paternal grandparents in a ritual lasting several days. The narrative arc of the story movingly explores death and life, a multi-branched and multi-generational clan, and ancient and modern belief systems, as it moves toward a tragic climax. First Mountain is bilingual on facing pages, and Zhang Er's third book to be published by Zephyr Press.