《天行者》 以中國(guó)20世紀(jì)90年代貧乏的鄉(xiāng)村教育為背景，講述了一群在貧苦生活中無(wú)私為鄉(xiāng)村教育事業(yè)做出貢獻(xiàn)的民辦教師為求轉(zhuǎn)正而發(fā)生的辛酸故事，也反映出被人們遺忘已久的鄉(xiāng)村民辦教師曾有過(guò)的艱難歷程。

本書(shū)圍繞著西河鄉(xiāng)界嶺小學(xué)三代民辦教師轉(zhuǎn)正的故事，以及張英才、余校長(zhǎng)、孫四海、萬(wàn)站長(zhǎng)、藍(lán)飛和夏雪等人的愛(ài)情故事開(kāi)展起來(lái)。這些大故事中穿插著小故事，每個(gè)小故事又可以作為下個(gè)故事開(kāi)展的源頭，相互交叉匯合，使得小說(shuō)的敘事精彩紛呈，緊縮而富有張力。

The Sky Dwellers describes the lives and struggles of primary school teachers in Jieling, a tiny, fictional community nestled high in remote mountains in China. These teachers are not state teachers, with regular salaries and pensions to look forward to. They are, instead, community teachers (or minban teachers a term which literally translates as people-supported teachers) whose wages are paid by the local community and who might not have received much beyond primary school teaching themselves. During the 1960s, 70s and 80s, most children in China were taught by minban teachers. From the early 1990s onwards, the role was gradually phased out, and some minban teachers were lucky enough to become state teachers.

A minban teachers life was one of poverty. State subsidies provided only part of their wages and local cadres were supposed to make up the rest from often very limited village funds. But often the cadres did not pay on time, or at all. Inevitably, this would result in tensions a theme explored in this novel.

Each of the teachers in the book responds differently to the pressures of life as a minban teacher. But the novel is not just about the teachers lives, it also deals with the impact they had on the children and the community they served. Set in the 1990s, a time of great social and cultural change in China, The Sky Dwellers is a compelling, personal and moving account of a part of Chinas recent past which is often overlooked.