In the last days of the monsoon in 2006, a helicopter crash in Nepal’s eastern hills claimed some of the country’s best, including the charismatic environmentalist Chandra Gurung.

Starting with his birth as the son of the headman of the small village of Siklis, Manjushree Thapa follows the arc of his career as he achieved one democratic breakthrough after another in a conservation movement under royal patronage, where the royal family expected environmentalists to pander to their every whim.

Offering a historical view into Nepal’s conservation movement as a whole, A Boy from Siklis is the portrait of one man, of his times, and of a nation made and unmade—and made anew—by its quest for democracy.

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