Review
"[A] sprawling history and memoir of Nepal and its fast-growing capital." ― New York Review of Books
“Nepal is always at risk of being defined by the tragic and the violent, by dramatic events involving rock, ice or blood. . . . Bell’s Kathmandu . . . is therefore to be welcomed as a chance to look beyond such tragedies and learn something of Nepal’s complex religious and social history—and the equally complex machinations of politics in the capital city that has dominated it for centuries.” ― Financial Times
“In Kathmandu, [Bell] tells the story of the city both before and, to an extent, after the quake. . . . This isn’t so much a standard history as an amiable ramble around Nepal’s past. . . . Bell’s approach isn’t entirely orthodox. . . . But it’s all the more readable for it.” ― Guardian
"With extraordinary candour and courage [Bell] blazes a trail through the backstreets of the city to the hidden places most of us choose not to see, listening to conversations we prefer not to hear when visiting a country as complicated as Nepal. Fault lines affecting the whole country radiate out from the city; to ignore them, this book makes clear, is to be complicit in the myths that continue to bind Nepal in a knot of poverty and injustice. It is not just tourists who can be selectively blind and deaf, but also expats, diplomats, aid agencies and a whole host of foreign NGOs." ― Literary Review
“The sheer breadth of subject matter Thomas Bell covers in his book, and the clear affection with which he writes about the city where he is now raising a family, are a remarkable tribute to one of the most entrancing and rapidly evolving capitals of the world.” ― Times Literary Supplement
“Kathmandu is an extensive, well-researched and multidisciplinary writing on Nepal. Anyone who is interested to know about the art, culture and heritage of Kathmandu should read this book. All the people, including students to scholars, who want to know about Nepal and its political upheavals, would find it enlightening.” ― Policy Eye
“Explores a city that sits at a crossroads in politics, history, religion and myth—an excellent primer for those visiting post-quake.” ― Wanderlust
“[A] wide-ranging, deep-delving, clear-headed exposition of all things Kathmandu.” ― Spectator
“The best bits in Kathmandu are the hour-by-hour accounts of reporting brick-throwing demonstrations, or trudging mountain tracks for days in search of Maoist insurgents to interview. . . . A very enjoyable book. Above all you breathe the atmosphere of Nepal, with its blend of permissiveness and constriction. Nepal is rigid yet oddly adaptive, and resilient.” ― CapX
“There is fine, unflinching journalism in this book. But there is affection, even love too. It is a powerful, intoxicating mixture. It produces an unsettling, admirable, compelling and deeply unusual narrative that matches the city in both its allure and individuality.” ― Herald Scotland
"In his impressive debut book Bell traces the layers of Kathmandu’s past through to the present." ― History Today
“A wonderful book that speaks to a wide audience. Situating the city within its larger political and historical contexts, Thomas Bell has produced a book that comes as close as any to capturing the spirit of the intriguing, dynamic, troubled, and endlessly confounding Kathmandu.” ― Studies in Nepali History and Society, on the Indian edition
“A wonderfully discursive account of the personal discovery of a great city. Looping through centuries and slaloming between journalism, history memoir, mythology, and gossip, Tom Bell has written a portrait of Kathmandu like no other, taking us from Manjushree to the Maoists via witches, colonial Orientalists, LSD cults, spies wars, and old Serge Gainsbourg movies. A splendidly eccentric and enjoyable first book.” -- William Dalrymple, author of Return of a King
“A narrative of an enchanting and troubling complexity. Tom Bell has thought through the history and contemporary reality of Kathmandu, and has written a great, subtle book, one as shadowed as Kathmandu’s alleys and as brilliant as its midday squares.” -- Teju Cole, author of Open City and Every Day is for the Thief
“Kathmandu, like the country of which it is the capital, is much visited but much misunderstood. Few make the effort to look beyond the mountains and stupas, the forests and elephants. In this lucid, clever, thorough and beautifully written book, Tom Bell does this for us, recounting the gripping history of the fascinating city with equal measures of verve and care. Kings, Maoist guerillas, mountaineers, demonstrators, poets, psychopathic princes and politicians all make for a tale as colourful as a local market. A genuine must-read for any visitor to the city, to Nepal, or indeed to the sub-continent.”
-- Jason Burke, Southeast Asia correspondent, Guardian
"A wonderful literary journey through the streets and history of Kathmandu." -- Sir Ranulph Fiennes
About the Author
Thomas Bell studied at Oxford and the Courtauld Institute of Art before moving to Kathmandu to cover the civil war in Nepal for the Daily Telegraph and the Economist. He left Kathmandu in 2016 and now lives in the United States.
