On the Slopes of Eden

On the Slopes of Eden is no ordinary travel book about Himalayan adventure. The book paints an empathic portrait of the people who live on the terraced slopes of the Annapurna Range, the people the trekkers walk past on their way to the attractions of the high Himalayas. The book is anchored by a set of ten interviews with farmers, innkeepers, a school principal, school children, each encountered in villages or along the path through the terraces. These individuals seem eager to tell us about their lives, their struggles, and their hopes. The author's camera brings it all to life with over a hundred photographs of faces and fields, tea houses and terraces, buffaloes and thatched-roof homes-all the details of daily life against the stupendous backdrop of the Annapurnas. Initially, Sam Brian had some romantic notions of the terraces as an agrarian idyll, a society close to the land, unsullied by the complexities of modernity. By the time the team had completed the first two interviews, he writes, "...the people of the terraces had a very different story to tell, and we had positioned ourselves to hear and record that story." Rather than stating for us what that different story is, the author-photographer lets the tale emerge through the interviews. This gives the book an immediacy, a spontaneity, as the reader accompanies the team on their journey of discovery. For trekkers, for those who love Nepal, for those concerned with the challenges of developing nations, and for those who are concerned with the plight of individuals swept up in the global forces of change, this book is a must-see, must-read.