Alphabets in the Snow

In Shechen, a village in the remote Khumbu region of Nepal, live Pema, her husband Dawa, and their son Phurba. Dawa is a yak-herder and a Sherpa porter. Life in the Himalaya, hardscrabble and beset with uncertainty, is far from idyllic, but the family and the village make their way in life together, sharing both hardship and joy. Tragedy strikes when Dawa is swept away by an avalanche on Mount Everest. In the aftermath, Pema makes a life-altering decision: she will trek to Kathmandu to buy books for her son because that was what Dawa wanted, for his son to be educated and never have to become a porter like him. What follows is a young mother’s epic journey from the highlands to the capital, armed only with her determination to conquer all challenges—poverty, terrain, an unfeeling bureaucracy, Maoist guerrillas, and her own deeply ingrained suspicion of books—to bring learning to her son. A rare blend of magic and hard-nosed realism, Alphabets in the Snow brings to vivid life a region rarely explored in fiction. With empathy, imagination, and skill, Nayan Raj Pandey, easily one of the best novelists in the subcontinent, tells a story that will break your heart.