Everest for a Sherpa Teen
Out There
Willow Belden
4.6 • 608 Ratings
🗓️ 23 January 2020
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Stories about Mt. Everest usually focus on the people trying to summit the mountain. But what about life for those who live near the world’s highest peak?
Journalist Adam Popescu first went to Everest to report for the BBC, but while there, he realized that there was a deeper story he wanted to tell. And he needed fiction to tell it.
On this episode, we talk with Adam about his debut novel, Nima, which is about a 17-year-old Sherpa woman trapped between tradition and ambition.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Willow Belden and you're listening to Out There, the podcast that explores big questions through intimate stories outdoors. |
| 0:17.4 | If I say the name Mount Everest, what comes to mind? |
| 0:21.6 | Maybe you picture a majestic, snowy peak. |
| 0:25.6 | Maybe you imagine climbers battling strong winds and sub-zero temperatures. |
| 0:30.6 | Perhaps you picture what it would be like to stand on the rooftop of the world. |
| 0:36.6 | What most of us don't think about is what it would be like to actually live near Mount Everest. |
| 0:43.3 | What if you grew up in a village at the foot of the mountain? |
| 0:47.3 | Imagine being a teenager there. |
| 0:49.3 | You live in a house with no electricity, no plumbing. |
| 0:53.3 | You have so many siblings that you refer to each other by numbers instead of names. |
| 0:58.5 | You don't go to school, even though you'd like to. |
| 1:02.1 | And you've never seen a car. |
| 1:05.7 | That's the premise of a new novel called Nima. |
| 1:09.4 | It's about a 17-year-old Sherpa girl who's about to enter into an arranged marriage and is trying to figure out what she wants in life. |
| 1:17.2 | The story explores questions of culture and ambition and gender, and it offers a glimpse into an economy where earning a living often means disrespecting the mountain that enables you to earn |
| 1:30.2 | that living. Today we talk with the author, Adam Popescu. Nima is Adam's first novel. His background |
| 1:38.9 | is in journalism, and he joins us today from his home in Los Angeles. |
| 1:48.2 | So how did the idea for this book come about? |
| 1:58.4 | I went to Nepal in the winter of 2013, and we were just talking about how cold it is for you in Wyoming. |
| 2:02.6 | It is cold, cold, cold in the Himalayas in winter. And there was no heating and there's no showers in you're cold and you stay cold. |
| 2:09.6 | And little did I know coming from Los Angeles, really what I was getting into. |
| 2:13.6 | But I wanted to do a story for the BBC about the human footprint on the |
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