Himalayan Voices provides admirers of Nepal and lovers of literature with their first glimpse of the vibrant literary scene in Nepal today. An introduction to the two most developed genres of modern Nepali literature-poetry and the short story-this work profiles eleven of Nepal`s most distinguished poets and offers translations of more than eighty poems written from 1916 to 1986. Twenty of the most interesting and best-known examples of the Nepali short story are translated into English for the first time by Michael Hutt. All provide vivid descriptions of Life in twentieth-century Nepal. This book should appeal not only to admires of Nepal, but to all readers with an interest in non-Western literatures.

Shoshaman takes us inside Japan's integrated trading companies to explore the daily lives of the shoshamen, the high-powered pro-fessionals who make them work.

Kirin Narayan’s imagination was captured the very first time that, as a girl visiting the Himalayas, she heard Kangra women join their voices together in song. Returning as an anthropologist, she became fascinated by how they spoke of singing as a form of enrichment, bringing feelings of accomplishment, companionship, happiness, and even good health—all benefits of the “everyday creativity” she explores in this book. Part ethnography, part musical discovery, part poetry, part memoir, and part unforgettable portraits of creative individuals, this unique work brings this remote region in North India alive in sight and sound while celebrating the incredible powers of music in our lives. With rare and captivating eloquence, Narayan portrays Kangra songs about difficulties on the lives of goddesses and female saints as a path to well-being. Like the intricate geometries of mandalu patterns drawn in courtyards or the subtle balance of flavors in a meal, well-crafted songs offer a variety of deeply meaningful benefits: as a way of making something of value, as a means of establishing a community of shared pleasure and skill, as a path through hardships and limitations, and as an arena of renewed possibility. Everyday Creativity makes big the small world of Kangra song and opens up new ways of thinking about what creativity is to us and why we are so compelled to engage it.

A memoir of Ainu life over five hundred years ago, before Japanese invasions nearly killed off this indigenous society. No written records remain, other than Japanese observations, but the author has relied on surviving oral accounts and extensive study of anthropological and archeological discoveries to construct a representative woman's life story.

With this translation of the 1929 novel Rainbow(Hong), one of China's most influential works of fiction is at last available in English. Rainbow chronicles the political and social disruptions in China during the early years of the twentieth century. Inspired by the iconoclasm of the "May Fourth Movement," the heroine, Mei, embarks on a journey that takes her from the limitations of the traditional family to a discovery of the new, "modern" values of individualism, sexual equality, and political responsibility. The novel moves with Mei from the conservative world of China's interior provinces down the Yangtze River to Shanghai, where she discovers the turbulent political environment of China's most modern city. Mao Dun writes with the conviction of one who has lived through the events he is describing. Rainbow provides a moving introduction to the contradictions inherent in the simultaneous quest for personal freedom and national strengthening. Vividly evocative of the period in which it was written, it is equally relevant to the China of today.

A collection of translated stories about life in Tokyo throughout most of the twentieth century.

Nagatsuka Takashi's novel The Soil, published in Japan in 1910, provides a moving and sensitive but unsentimental portrait of rural peasant life in Japan during the Meiji era. The community described is the author's native place, and the characters whose lives are described in vivid detail over a period of years are drawn from life.

In this tell-all autobiography, Sri M writes about his fascinating journey as a young man from the southern coast of India to the mystical Himalayan Mountains. At the age of nineteen and a half, he felt an irresistible urge to go to the Himalayas in quest for his great Master. He finally met his Master at the Vyasa Cave, beyond the Badrinath shrine. After spending three and half years with his Master, wandering freely across the length and breadth of the Himalayan ranges, he was instructed to go back to live in the plains and lead a normal life. He started working for a living, fulfilled his social commitments and prepared himself to teach others all that he had learned and experienced. This book reveals the spiritual journey of a young lad from Kerala, who by his sincerity and dedication evolved into a living yogi. Sri M shares his knowledge of the Upanishads and spiritual insights born out of first hand experiences in his autobiography. Apprenticed to a Himalayan Master will make for an engaging and riveting read for those interested in the life and teachings of Sri M.

Second, expanded edition of the 'bible' of Himalayan Singing Bowls and their sounds. Particularly useful is the wide scope of the book, which includes not just Tibetan and other bowls and the techniques used to sound them but Chinese bells, drilbu and ding-sha, the planets, elements and chakras, cymatics, overtones and partials, nada yoga, mantras, symbolism and astrology of the bowls, their relation to western music, Pythagoras and Newton, and the psychic integrity and true awareness of the bowl user. There is almost nothing that is not here. Although in the 1970s Frank Perry was one of the earliest practitioners of Himalayan Bowls his music has also been profoundly experimental, so that there are techniques in this book not to be found elsewhere alongside the clearest and most detailed analysis of how to 'play' the bowls, a combination which shows in Perry's bestselling albums Deep Peace and Celestial Harmonies. Not only can you sound your bowls and perform with them, you can understand their overtones and harmonics and thus appreciate the tradition from which they come and the subtle symbols and messages associated with them Frank's writing is also a revelation of his personal contact with living Himalayan Masters, his immersion in esoteric traditions and mysticism, and his understanding of other art forms such as the paintings of Nicholas Roerich, where he is an expert. He is the author many articles but this is his first book. As a musician he is widely mentioned in books on both percussion and improvisation, including those by Derek Bailey and Bettine and Taylor. He has recorded with Brian Eno and is an international performer familiar with both radio, television and modern media. Nonetheless he is in private a true ascetic, for whom the sound experience he is hearing and maybe creating is paramount. The second edition is expanded and corrected, with the addition of a chapter and a further appendix.