The Himalayan mountains are among the most significant natural, cultural, and political landscapes for South Asia and the world. Drawing from over thirty years of work on the Himalayas as a sociocultural anthropologist, Dr. Ravina Aggarwal, Director, Columbia Global Centers | Mumbai, turns to fiction in her new book, Searching for the Songbird, to convey the historical representations and conflicting realities of life in the region today.
Lee C. Bollinger, President of Columbia University, presided over the launch of the book on April 23, 2022. at an event organized at Reid Hall by Columbia Global Centers | Paris. Dr. Aggarwal provided the context for her novel in a presentation that was attended by several faculty and the senior leadership of Columbia University.
Expanding on her writing process, Dr. Aggarwal said that although fantasy is the dominant genre for middle grade and young adult readers, she veered towards modern realism as there is much to discover and learn about the places right here in our world that have not been adequately represented. She traced the depiction of the Himalayas in colonial and postcolonial literature, and called for a new way to imagine the region, based on listening to the music, birdsongs, and social expressions of the mountains. She also elaborated on the role of fiction in addressing pressing environmental challenges and social differences across borders.
