Lingchen Dorji

In these twenty-one haunting stories Lingchen Dorji portrays the various facets of contemporary Bhutanese life with a rare sense of humanism. He sees life sometimes as a comedy, sometimes as a tragedy, and at times uses the two modes to reflect the wit and humor, love and compassion, and the strong spiritual yearning of the people of Bhutan. The stories involve various characters --- from truant and notorious students to epiphanic drunkards, young job-seeking graduates to witty Bhutanese merchants, and earnest spiritual seekers in modern Bhutan. Tightly controlled and luminously written, this outstanding collection confirms that Lingchen is one of today’s most exciting writers from Bhutan.