This is my next book.
I'll do my best to finish it by November.
Foreword
A leopard appears at the beginning of Ernest Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro:
“Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain 19,710 feet high, and is said to be the highest mountain in Africa. Its western summit is called the Masai ‘Ngàje Ngài,’ the House of God. Close to the western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude.”
I was deeply moved by the image of this lone leopard.
What was it seeking, climbing toward the summit of Kilimanjaro?
It is a barren and perilous place, offering no prey, no comfort.
Yet still, it climbed—driven by something invisible, something sacred.
It chose to go there.
This book tells the story of Akira Obara, who died while engaging in relief work after the great Nepal earthquake.
It also speaks of a greater mission—the revival of Buddhism in Nepal.
The title is “The Lion of the Himalayas”.