Jaya Nepal! - David Hughes Martin

Set against the striking backdrop of South Asia in the early years of the new millennium, Jaya Nepal! is a rollicking mini epic that takes readers into the bustling, exotic, and colorful world of urban Kathmandu. Twenty-five-year-old Berkeley grad Benjamin Creed, an idealistic and motivated young recruit, begins his odyssey in a community curiously named Pepsicola Townplanning. The newly reinstated Nepal Peace Corps program, resurrected after the country's lengthy and bloody civil war, has drawn a gauntlet of intrepid volunteers, joining him in an iconic, multiyear program. Following Benjamin to Nepal is a painful past riddled with careless words and broken hearts, which eventually catches up with him and forces him to make the toughest decision of his life. Along the way, Benjamin and his friends, American and Nepali alike, encounter circumstances and choices that illuminate the struggles, sacrifices, and triumphs that intimately shape the lives of volunteers in and residents of South Asia. An engaging look at the life of someone who volunteers with the Peace Corps but finds experiences that transcend even that, Jaya Nepal! is an examination of what it means to be a young person torn by the equally powerful emotions of love and desire for social justice.