Category: Non-fiction
Rights: All rights available
This book is Kunzang’s own story, in her own words. Kunzang Choden’s memories of an idyllic and privileged childhood spent as part of a landed Bhutan household, are memories of a long-gone Bhutan. In a bid to join the “modern world” Bhutan underwent momentous changes during this period. This book is an important historical record of fading and soon to be forgotten social structures, lifeways and beliefs. However, it’s also the story of a family that faces these currents of large-scale social change. Orphaned young, her early life was one shaped by loss and absence. Written in a series of fragmented remembered episodes and musings, it moves between her past in a remote Bhutanese village, her schools in India and her present where she is living once again in her childhood home now transformed into a museum which honors the legacy of her ancestors. Her voice as a well-respected Bhutanese storyteller is both entertaining and intimate, finding both the humor and the pathos in her past.
The author: Kunzang Choden