In 1981, Vikram Seth was an economics graduate student at Stanford University and on a leave of absence at Nanjing University, studying the Chinese language and economic structure. He had published a book of poems, but was not yet the author of that doorstop of a novel A Suitable Boy or the outrageously inventive Golden Gate. After two years in Nanjing, Seth hitchhiked home to New Delhi via Tibet. Fluent in Chinese and garbed in the traditional blue trousers, jacket, and visored cap, Seth recorded his astute observations and candid conversations in From Heaven Lake.

The starting point of From Heaven Lake is in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang. While on an organized tour for foreign students, Seth soon becomes frustrated by the limitations imposed by the trip's "minders" and makes plans of his own. A mixture of guile, doggedness, and luck land him a visa that allows him to hitch from Tibet to Lhasa and on through Nepal to Kathmandu. This is no ordinary travelogue, and Seth is no ordinary traveler — he has an eye for character and vividly describes the land, the people he meets, and the fragility of Tibet's cultural heritage in the wake of China's Cultural Revolution.

It is also true that this is no ordinary journey. To travel across Eastern China in the early '80s was unheard of for a Westerner — to cross into Tibet from China is nearly impossible to this day. Seth describes his fair share of obstacles and irritations, but his main focus is on the unexpected gestures of kindness he encounters in the course of the journey. The author is at home in any part of the world: climbing into lost caverns in Chinese temples or wading in underground canals; playing basketball with officials or Frisbee with waiters; assimilating the quietude of a Chinese shrine and a mosque alike; enjoying a picnic with a Tibetan family he has just met; and, above all, conversing on all topics with an assortment of strangers. Much has been said about how travel broadens one's experience, but with From Heaven's Lake, the reader witnesses it happening.

-Sage Van Wing