Word: pokhrel
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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When Durga Pokhrel was born in a small mountain village in Nepal, astrologers foretold that if she were born female, she would be as strong as a son. Appropriately named after the Hindu goddess of power, Durga went on to pursue a turbulent career as teacher, journalist and democratic and human rights activist in Nepal, during which her strength and constancy were severely tested. Contrary to the wishes of her conservative Hindu family, she became a scholar and university lecturer, but was blacklisted by the government for her political activities and eventually expelled from the university where she taught...
Through it all, Pokhrel kept her faith in herself and her will to live, and made devoted friends in prison while her friends outside worked to set her free. She became an Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience and was eventually released by the order of the king of Nepal. However, fearing future and possibly fatal persecution, she quietly fled to the U.S., where she attended Harvard's Kennedy School of Government as a Mason Fellow, and received an M.P.A. Later she received a Doctorate of Education from the Graduate School of Education...
Shadow Over Shangri-La is partly an autobiography, in that Pokhrel describes her experiences in Nepal, as well as her life after moving to the United States. It is also a call for a different kind of government in Nepal, not a slavish imitation of Western-style regimes but a balanced fusion of old and new, monarchy and democracy, Western innovations and Hindu traditions. But it is also, and fundamentally, a universal story of suffering and perseverance, written for--and dedicated to--all victims of human rights abuse...