Among flowers : a walk in the Himalaya / Jamaica Kincaid.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kincaid, Jamaica, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Kincaid, Jamaica--Travel--Nepal.

Kincaid, Jamaica.

Travel.

Nepal--Description and travel.

Nepal.

Physical Description:

xxv, 191 pages : illustrations, maps ; 21 cm

Edition:

First Picador paperback edition, 2020.

Place of Publication:

New York : Picador, 2020.

Summary:

"In this travel memoir, the acclaimed novelist Jamaica Kincaid chronicles a three-week trek through Nepal, the spectacular and exotic Himalayan land, where she and her companions are gathering seeds for planting at home. The natural world and, in particular, plants and gardening are central to Kincaid's work; in addition to such novels as Annie John and Lucy, Kincaid is the author of My Garden (Book): a collection of essays about her love of cultivating plants and gardens throughout her life. Among Flowers intertwines meditations on nature and stunning descriptions of the Himalayan landscape with observations on the ironies, difficulties, and dangers of this magnificent journey. For Kincaid and three botanist friends, Nepal is a paradise, a place where a single day's hike can traverse climate zones, from subtropical to alpine, encompassing flora suitable for growing at their homes, from Wales to Vermont. Yet as she makes clear, there is far more to this foreign world than rhododendrons that grow thirty feet high. Danger, too, is a constant companion -- and the leeches are the least of the worries. Unpredictable Maoist guerrillas live in these perilous mountains, and when they do appear -- as they do more than once -- their enigmatic presence lingers long after they have melted back into the landscape. And Kincaid, who writes of the looming, lasting effects of colonialism in her works, necessarily explores the irony of her status as memsahib with Sherpas and bearers. A wonderful blend of introspective insight and beautifully rendered description, Among Flowers is a vivid, engrossing, and characteristically frank memoir from one of our most striking voices."--Back cover.

Contents:

To Kathmandu

The Maoists

Two days to Thudam

Topke Gola

A night spent in a gorge

It is finished.

Notes:

"With a new introduction by the author."--Cover.

ISBN:

9780374538101

0374538107

OCLC:

1111783499