Customer Reviews

Living in the Middle: Sherpas of the Mid-Range Himalayas

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Donna Sherpa begins her book on Sherpa culture by telling us that it is not a dissertation. That turns out to be quite true, with both good and bad results! This book is a personal story of one American woman's relationship with her Sherpa husband, and through him a curious understanding of Sherpa culture as a whole.

The book is really a diary and travel story, full of pleasant anecdotes about the author's beloved husband and his relatives. However, there are a number of factual errors and incomplete tables which reveal that the author has not done her Sherpa culture homework! Nepali language words are labelled as Sherpa, and both Nepali and Sherpa words are transliterated incorrectly.

Although language and meaning errors are probably the result of Mrs. Sherpa's primary informant (her husband) being very partially educated, it is also a sign of poor fact-checking.

I would recommend Mrs. Sherpa's book as an entertaining light read for Americans who are interested in one woman's view of Nepal and Sherpa culture, but for factual correctness see Sherry Ortner's or James Fisher's well-researched (and very readable) Sherpa books.