Nepal A Shangri La Narratives Of Culture Contact And Memory

Nepal, a Shangri-La? Narratives of Culture, Contact, and Memory is a collection of salient personal narratives representing diverse aspects of Nepal and Nepali life of the last 70 years. Combining description and reflection, contributors-both Nepalis who have lived abroad and non Nepalis with significant experience in Nepal-relate their most remarkable observations and memories of various facets of Nepali life for this unique volume. Divided into eight sections, these pieces deal with such diverse themes as art, culture, faith, superstition, language, gender, politics, disease and displacement, rural-urban divide, local-global interconnectedness, and issues of identities along lines of geography, gender, and caste or ethnicity. Noted writer, Abhi Subedi's foreword contextualizes the evocative construct of Shangri-La, and the editors' introduction shows how the narratives both embed and challenge the concept in the shaping of a national imaginary.