On April 25, 2015, a devastating earthquake struck Nepal, killing more than eight thousand people and injuring nearly three times that many. The damage was vast, and the recovery process has been slow and painful.
This book documents that aftermath and rebuilding, but it also offers much more. Johnny Fenn, a former Ghurka officer turned photographer, presents here a beautiful visual tour of life in Nepal today. As field director of the Gurkha Welfare Trust, which provides financial, medical, and emergency support to Nepalese people in need, Fenn established deep connections with people in towns and villages throughout the land, and the resulting photographs marry the region’s stunning landscape to intimate details of everyday life on the roof of the world. Those portraits, striking on their own, gain additional power when set alongside Fenn’s images of the disaster and its aftermath, enabling us to understand more fully what the disaster cost the people of Nepal.
A landmark work, Light and Life in the Middle Hills is rooted in a deep love and appreciation of the people and landscape of Nepal, and it will powerfully affect anyone who has felt drawn to this storied land.