Tales in Colors & Other Stories by Kunzang Choden

These deceptively simple stories uncover both the complexity and irony of women’s lives in contemporary Bhutan. They show how ordinary lives, choices and experiences are both remarkable and poignant. In “I am a Small Person”, a despised woman uses her femininity as a means to control a man; the young girl in “I won’t ask Mother” suddenly feels empowered and confident when she makes a decision without consulting her mother. All the stories take place in rural settings, to which creeping urbanization brings gradual change, and tensions surface between the new and the old, or the traditional and the modern. For many rural women, being able to connect to the city and all its perceived glamour and power is a very real aspiration and one that is sensitively dealt with in stories like “Look at her Belly Button”, and “The Photograph”.

Product Dimension

• Published: 2009
• ISBN Number: 9788189884628 
• Number of Pages: 145
• Length x Width x Height: 13cm x 7cm x 13cm

About the Author

Choden was born in Bumthang District. Her parents were feudal landlords. At the age of nine, her father sent her to school in India, where she learned English. She has a BA Honours in Psychology from Indraprastha College in Delhi and a BA in Sociology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She has worked for the United Nations Development Program in Bhutan. She and her Swiss husband currently live in Thimphu.