Paper Road

Nigel Macfarlane has worked alongside artisan papermakers in India, Nepal and Bhutan for more than forty years. Paper Road tells the story of that journey and of his engagement not just with the place but with handmade paper and with an age-old craft. His account ranges from the contemporary to the distant past, from India's tropical south to the remotest valleys of the Himalayas. It contains characters whose stories reveal the region as it is rarely seen. While the book looks at the influence of such towering figures as Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo on Indian papermaking, at its heart are the many uncelebrated individuals Nigel comes across on his paper journey. We come to feel the passion of the professor in Pune who is determined to prove that papermaking originated in India not China and the irrepressible energy of Shiva Ram in Nepal, who starts a village cooperative to grow the lokta bark needed to make paper. And we meet the brilliant and mercurial Vasudevan with whom Nigel set up a paper factory in South India, a factory which now supplies handmade papers to artists on every continent. Paper Road combines a refreshing sense of purpose, veracity, dry humour and real experience.