Author(s): Isabella Tree

Travel

An intense exploration of the vibrant Nepali tradition of worshipping a pre-pubescent girl as the incarnation of the universal goddess, Devi, which moves seamlessly between present and past, myth and reality, violence and utter peace. The best kind of travel book: emotionally engaged, but written after a 12-year immersion in the country and its culture. Contrasts the peaceful, silent, dutiful, hard-working traditional goddess with the depravities and violence of Nepal's ruling elite and their politics. Informed by a quotation from Guillaume Postel, the 16th-century French scholar, that 'The Word has been made man, but the world will be saved when the Word shall have been made woman.' A quietly feminist treatise for a prototype of elective female leadership. Retells the complex polytheistic mythology of Hindu/Buddhist tradition in a beguiling and intelligible voice.