Books from Bhutan

Foods of the Kingdom of Bhutan is a cookbook by Ernest T. Nagamatsu and Erik Nagamatsu that documents traditional Bhutanese dishes and the culture surrounding them. Bhutan sits high in the eastern Himalayas between China and India, and its cuisine reflects both its geography and its Buddhist traditions. The book presents recipes for dishes such as churu jaju, a soothing dairy-based preparation, toasted zaw, and the sweet dish known as desi, among others.

Alongside the recipes, the book includes photographs of Bhutanese people and landscapes, connecting each dish to the places and daily life from which it comes. The volume was printed in Bhutan itself, and all proceeds go to the Tarayana Foundation and the Bhutan Foundation, two organizations focused on community support within the country.

The book received the 2010 Gourmand World Cookbook Award in the category of Best Asian Cuisine Book in the World. Because Bhutan has historically limited outside access and tourism, English-language cookbooks devoted entirely to its food traditions are uncommon, which makes this collection a focused record of a cuisine that remains little documented internationally.

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Tales in Colour and Other Stories is a collection of thirteen short stories by Kunzang Choden, set in rural Bhutan. The stories follow women at different stages of life as they navigate the pressures of a country where traditional village ways and modern urban influence exist side by side. Each story captures a specific moment of tension or decision, often small in scale but significant for the woman at its center.

In one story, a woman regarded with contempt uses her own femininity to gain control over a man. In another, a young girl feels a new sense of confidence after making a choice without her mother's guidance. A recurring thread across the collection is the pull of the city. For many rural women in these pages, urban life represents power and possibility. One story follows a young woman who moves away from farming and adopts the habits of city life with apparent ease, drawn by the idea of becoming a different kind of Bhutanese person.

Choden's writing stays close to everyday details of rural Bhutanese life, where change arrives gradually and its effects are sometimes welcome, sometimes disorienting. The collection gives attention to moments that might otherwise go unnoticed, placing ordinary choices against the larger shifts reshaping the country.

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Bhutan sits in the eastern Himalayas between India and China, a small landlocked kingdom that has drawn growing international curiosity in recent decades. In 2008, the country transitioned to a constitutional democracy and crowned its new king, who at the time was the youngest reigning monarch in the world. These events, along with the widely discussed policy of Gross National Happiness, brought Bhutan into global headlines. Yet for all this attention, detailed English-language scholarship on the country's long history has remained remarkably scarce.

Karma Phuntsho's The History of Bhutan is described as the first attempt to cover the full span of Bhutanese history in some depth in English. The book traces the country's past from its earliest periods through the formation of a unified state, the role of Buddhism in governance and daily life, and the political changes that led to the modern constitutional monarchy. Phuntsho, himself Bhutanese, draws on local sources and traditions that are often inaccessible to outside researchers.

The scope of the work reflects how much of Bhutan's recorded past has been preserved in Dzongkha and classical Tibetan rather than in widely read European languages. That language gap partly explains why one of Asia's most distinctive states has remained so lightly documented for international audiences.

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Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse is a Tibetan Buddhist teacher and filmmaker known for his direct, often irreverent style of communication. In What Makes You Not a Buddhist, he addresses a straightforward question: what actually defines a Buddhist? Rather than focusing on meditation habits, cultural symbols, or lifestyle choices, Khyentse argues that the answer lies in whether a person genuinely accepts four specific views, commonly known as the Four Seals of Buddhism.

These four principles concern impermanence, the nature of suffering, the concept of selflessness, and the meaning of nirvana. Khyentse uses each one as a framework for examining assumptions that both practicing Buddhists and curious outsiders often carry without scrutiny. He points out that many people attracted to Buddhism engage mostly with its outer forms, such as incense, robes, or beads, while bypassing the philosophical positions at its foundation.

The book is short and written in a conversational tone, with humor and occasional sharpness. Khyentse draws examples from ordinary life to illustrate abstract ideas, keeping the discussion grounded in recognizable situations rather than specialized vocabulary. His background connects to Bhutan and the broader Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and he is also known for directing several feature films.

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