A tender account – by turns cultural exploration and memoir – of a young woman’s first hand experience of change and continuity in one of the world’s most remote regions, through the lens of the horse
and ‘horse culture’...
At just 19, Sienna Craig made her first venture to Mustang, an ethnically Tibetan area of Nepal, in the rainshadow of the Himalayas. As an equestrian and a budding anthropologist, she sought not only to understand what it was like to rely on horses to navigate through the windswept valleys and plains of High Asia, but also to grasp how horses lent meaning – through myth, ritual, and metaphor – to the lives of the Mustangi people. Through living and working with local Tibetan doctors, veterinarians, and other horse experts, as well as the deep friendships she formed, Sienna began to understand the region’s history, as well as how life in Mustang was being transformed in the face of tremendous social, political, and economic shifts. She also endeavored to learn about herself, and her life’s course, through her year in Mustang – a place that has come to feel, for all its foreignness,
like home.
"Many scholars have opened Himalayan cultures up to us with authority and learning, but few have traveled with the open heart and transparent sincerity of Sienna Craig. Horses Like Lightning is a singular dance of innocence and experience."
— Pico Iyer, author of Sun After Dark: Flights Into the Foreign
Publisher: Wisdom Publications
Distributor: Perseus Distribution
Publication Date: 06-28-2008
Pages: 200
Measurements: 9.00in X 6.00in X 14.50oz
