Himalaya A Literary Homage to Adventure, Meditation, and Life on the Roof of the World

Intimate, exhilarating writings on adventure, meditation, and life in the captivating wildness of the Himalayan Mountains—with contributions from Amitav Ghosh, Mark Twain, Rabindranath Tagore, Peter Matthiessen, and more.

For some, the Himalaya is a frontier against which people test themselves. Others find refuge and tranquility in the mountains, a place where they can seek their true selves, perhaps even God. Over millennia, the mountains have cradled civilization itself and nurtured teeming, irrepressible life. With over thirty essays, this exhilarating anthology offers a dazzling range of voices that reveal accounts of great ascents and descents—from reflecting on a deadly avalanche to searching for a snow leopard and enjoying the simple pleasure of riding a handcar down a railway track. These diverse writings bring to life the spirit of the Himalaya in an unparalleled panorama.

Contributors include:
Amitav Ghosh
Mark Twain
Rabindranath Tagore
Peter Matthiessen
Edmund Hillary
Aleister Crowley
Andrew Harvey
Vicki Mackenzie
Sarat Chandra Das
H. A. Giles (Trans.)
Jahangir
Sven Hedin
Frank S. Smythe
Anil Yadav
Jinasena
Arundhathi Subramaniam
Dharamvir Bharati
Swami Vivekananda
Rahul Sankrityayan
Francis Younghusband
Ruskin Bond
Jemima Diki Sherpa
Kirin Narayan
Jawaharlal Nehru
Abdul Wahid Radhu
Jim Corbett
Bill Aitken
Hridayesh Joshi
Dom Moraes
Manjushree Thapa

Ruskin Bond is the author of numerous books, several of them set in the villages and towns of the Himalayan region. Among his books are The Room on the Roof, A Flight of Pigeons, and The Night Train at Deoli. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1993, the Padma Shri in 1999, and the Padma Bhushan in 2014.
 
Namita Gokhale is a bestselling author whose books include Paro: Dreams of Passion, A Himalayan Love Story, and The Book of Shadows. Namita is also codirector of the Jaipur Literature Festival and the Bhutan literary festival Mountain Echoes.