He arrived in the country in the midst of the decade-long Maoist insurgency, and has witnessed all of the country’s recent upheavals, from the massacre of the royal family to the end of the war and the formation of the republic, to the earthquakes in 2015. Kathmandu is a brutal, unflinching examination of contemporary Nepal—which, for better or worse, centres around its capital, Kathmandu. It’s also a memoir of his time in this difficult but lovable country.