The testament of Yves Gundron - Emily Barton

Set in the village of Mandragora in an unnamed country, The Testament of Yves Gundron opens with a description of a harsh, rural existence of and daily toil in a pre-industrial medieval community. Then Yves Gundron, yeoman farmer, invents the harness and life in Mandragora begins irreversibly to change.
All is not as it seems, however, and when anthropologist Ruth Blum appears in the village - native of Boston and the late twentieth century - what had seemed to be a simple historical document proves to be something else entirely.
In this ambitious, witty debut, Emily Barton has created a superb piece of wildly imaginative fiction. The Testament of Yves Gundron is a deftly handled examination of the double-edged sword of technology and explores what we may have lost and gained in our fervent pursuit of modernity.