While the Gods Were Sleeping A Journey Through Love and Rebellion in Nepal [Paperback]

Love and marriage brought American anthropologist Elizabeth Enslin to a world she never planned to make her own: a life among Brahman in-laws in a remote village in the plains of Nepal. As she faced the challenges of married life, birth, and childrearing in a foreign culture, she discovered as much about human resilience, and the capacity for courage, as she did about herself.

While the Gods Were Sleeping: A Journey Through Love and Rebellion in Nepaltells a compelling story of a woman transformed in intimate and unexpected ways. Set against the backdrop of increasing political turmoil in Nepal, Enslin’s story takes us deep into the lives of local women as they claim their rightful place in society—and make their voices heard.

I am fascinated and haunted by Elizabeth Enslin's story. It will stay with you and won't let you go.
—Luis Alberto Urrea, bestselling author ofInto the Beautiful NorthandThe Hummingbird's Daughter

If this fascinating, important story doesn’t draw you into Enslin’s telling of her time in Nepal, then the beautiful, moving prose will.
—Kerry Cohen, author ofSeeing Ezra

A fascinating memoir written with such clarity and honesty that it’s like taking a years-long trip through a little-known part of Nepal, far from the glamour and tourists of Kathmandu. Enslin's story is utterly unique yet broadly representative of billions of humans in so-called marginal places all over the world caught between tradition, politics, idealism, human nature, the environment, the local economy, the decidedly mixed blessings of globalization, and the simple pleasures of food, family, and the natural world.
—Pamela Olson, author ofFast Times in Palestine

This finely written memoir transports the reader into a society on the cusp of social and political transformation. The barriers to gender, caste, and class equalilÓR