What this collection is not is just a paean to a lost homeland or the pain of exile. In stories both accomplished and inept, there is a nuanced look at what it means to be Tibetan, not just as a nationality, a political or religious identity, but as simply human.

When Lama Wangchuk shoved his huge feet into my new shoes, I knew they would never be the same again. Both his feet and my shoes. He lifted his maroon monk robe to admire them, turning his feet side to side, pivoting on his toes.

Since he heard that “Man has reached the moon”,
our Thuley has left home.

The fact is, the strangest story I ever read in my life was when I was 27. I was living in Kirtipur and I read a story that has forever changed my life.

Where do socio-economic dispossession and marginalization end and the physical realities of climate change begin? What’s in a definition? Who gets to define it? As the climate continues to change, who is in charge to telling its stories? The “refugees”? The people calling them refugees?

I used to think that being able to rattle away in English was the greatest of achievements and sought to follow the diktat of the wet nurses of English education, “To earn money, study English.”

The small gods said
that I can’t see past the hill.

What am I?
A lady? A queen?

The kitchen is a silent civil war zone
Bound by wedding rings