The Himalayas are the highest mountains on Earth, the stupendously wild boundary between India and Tibet and a magnet for countless adventurers, missionaries and spiritual seekers. Yet the region is no empty wilderness – it is the home of a richly diverse human population with a longstanding literary tradition. Writing my history of the Himalayas required an Everest-sized reading list, but when I’d finished compiling my bibliography I felt I needed to say more. There were lots of weighty histories but I realised the soul of this amazing world lay elsewhere, in fiction, memoir and poetry. Until recently, few writers from the region have cut through to anglophone readers.
That’s beginning to change. Writers such as Manjushree Thapa and Prajwal Parajuly, shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas prize for his debut short story collection The Gurkha’s Daughter, have built followings in Europe and North America. Some seminal work from previous decades is getting translated, one shining example being the Darjeeling writer Indra Bahadur Rai. Historians are also starting to break down the exotic myths that coloured our view of this extraordinary but misunderstood part of the world. This then is my selection of books that catch the human texture and shape of the world’s highest mountain range. Some of the writers were born there; some are outsiders with a particular insight. All, I think, are very readable.
1. The High Road to China by Kate Teltscher
This history of the first visit to Tibet by a Briton was garlanded with praise when first published in 2006. If anything, it has only become more impressive, as the re-evaluation of Britain’s colonial history gathers pace. George Bogle was a Scot working for the governor-general of India, Warren Hastings, when he trekked across the Himalayas to meet the Panchen Lama, second in importance only to the Dalai Lama. Bogle was affable and down to earth, liked the country and loved its people, a contrast to the racism that later permeated British views of Tibet. Teltscher’s great skill is telling a complex tale with great panache while allowing Bogle’s own voice to be heard.
2. There’s a Carnival Today by Indra Bahadur Rai
Until the 19th century, the now-bustling town of Darjeeling was forest. Then the British grabbed it, cut down the trees and planted tea. Those plantations needed workers, so huge numbers from across the Himalayas relocated, especially Nepalis. We tend to picture Darjeeling as a scene from Jewel in the Crown but the town was a melting pot, full of disparate voices fervently seeking change, a political hotbed captured by its greatest writer in his best work, brilliantly translated by Manjushree Thapa. Set in the 1950s, it tells the story of Janak, a prominent businessman and politician facing ruin, foreshadowing the issues of identity that currently grip the region.
