A Season of Retreat

About This Book

‘Tsering Namgyal explores and explains the psychology of exile-born Tibetans and with great empathy [and] articulates their frustrations, anger and hopes for themselves and for Tibet.’—High Peaks Pure Earth It is the 1990s, the years of the Asian economic boom. Tashi is a financial journalist working in Taipei, where, by day, he crunches data, writes about the stock market, and analyses the ups and downs of the economy. After work, Tashi becomes a writer, a storyteller working on his book of stories, reaching into his family’s history of exile from Tibet, and into his Tibetan Buddhist roots. Despite his rise at work, an emptiness grows within Tashi, compelling him to ask deeper questions about himself and the life he leads. Is this what he was meant to do—to analyse how money is made? Be a cog in the money markets? Propelling him further on this path of self questioning are some remarkable women who become his lovers. Through these relationships, Tashi’s creative forces open up further and he begins to find his writing voice. His friends, many of whom are fellow Tibetans in exile, draw him deeper into his spiritual roots. But the momentum of the Asian markets take him to Hong Kong, the centre of finance. As the forces of history converge on him here, Tashi finally needs to decide where his own destiny lies. From the author of the much acclaimed The Tibetan Suitcase, this is a quiet and reflective story of a man’s search for peace, for himself, and for the answer to the eternal question—why am I here?