Women of the Karakoram: The Other Side of Silence

This is a book about women who live in the high altitude regions between Pakistan, India, and China. To the modern world they may seem poor and traditional. They are Muslim and secluded by custom. A wall of silence surrounds them which, at best, their menfolk can cross. Learning their language, I have had the privilege of living with them on the other side of this silence. The book is based on travels and residence in the high mountain villages over the past two and a half decades, and built around narratives of the daily life, customs, significant events, and recent changes in the lives of those people. The material was observed first hand. Some was recounted to me by the villagers in whose homes I stayed. In writing this book in the form of stories, I was influenced by the approach of life historians. I lived in the villages in homes with families, attempting to learn about their culture, to study their life-worlds, and to make sense of the changes brought about by modernisation.