Amazon.com
As a teacher of English literature, Jamie Zeppa would understand how the story of her journey into Bhutan could be fit into the convenient box of "coming-of-age romance," a romance with a landscape, a people, a religion, and a dark, irresistible student. An innocent, young Catholic woman from a Canadian mining town who had "never been anywhere," Zeppa signed up for a two-year stint teaching in a remote corner of the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. Despite the initial shock of material privation and such minor inconveniences as giardia, boils, and leeches, Zeppa felt herself growing into the vast spaces of simplicity that opened up beyond the clutter of modern life. Alongside her burgeoning enchantment, a parallel realization that all was not right in Shangri-La arose, especially after her transfer to a college campus charged with the politics of ethnic division. Still she maintained her center by devouring the library's Buddhist tracts and persevering in an increasingly fruitful meditation practice. When the time came for her to leave, she had undergone a personal transformation and found herself caught between two worlds that were incompatible and mutually incomprehensible. Zeppa's candid, witty account is a spiritual memoir, a travel diary, and, more than anything, a romance that retraces the vicissitudes of ineluctable passion. --Brian Bruya --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly
Zeppa's story is nearly an inversion of the ancient Buddhist tale of Siddhartha (in which a prince ventures from the paradise of his father's palace only to find the suffering and decay that he never knew existed) in that the author, at the age of 22, abruptly leaves a stale life in Canada to become a volunteer teacher in the remote and largely undisturbed Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan. Cloaked in the airy mountains between India and China, Bhutan initially frustrates but eventually captivates Zeppa with its rudimentary lifestyle that forces her to question former values and plans for the future. Though the story line would seem to open itself to cloying romanticization, Zeppa's telling of her clumsy attempts to adapt rings with sincerity and inspires sympathy. She thinks to herself upon visiting a local house: "In one shadowy corner, there is a skinny chicken. I blink several times but it does not vanish. Is it a pet? Is it dinner?" Zeppa's lucid descriptions of the craggy terrain and honest respect for the daily struggles of the natives bring the tiny land to life in a way that is reverent but real. Though she tries to avoid what a friend terms "that Shangri-La-Di-Da business" and grapples with the poverty, sexism and political squabbles in Bhutan that bother her, there is little doubt that she sees the place in a largely positive light and is tempted to remain. In the end, Zeppa's is a lively tale of her earnest efforts to reconcile what she has learned with what she has known. (June)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal
Canadian Zeppa turned away from a secure future "to do something in the real world." When the opportunity came to teach in the remote Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan, Zeppa accepted with alacrity over the protests of her xenophobic grandfather and the lukewarm approval of her fianc?. At 22, Zeppa was unprepared for the rigors of life in the Third World. Upon arrival at her assigned junior high school in the tiny tropical village of Pema Gatshel, she was dismayed by the primitive living quarters and her own inadequacies as a teacher. But her overwhelming culture shock was eased by the charm of the Bhutanese and the beauty of the landscape. Leaving her first assignment with reluctance, Zeppa was transferred to a position at a college in the mountain town of Kanglung, became a Buddhist, and plunged into a relationship with one of her students. Her story reads like a good novel; even her youthful na?vet? has charm. Zeppa's deep affection for her adopted home makes this a special book. Highly recommended.AJanet N. Ross, Washoe Cty. Lib. Sys., Sparks, NV
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

New York Times Book Review
"Zeppa's book suggests what other contemporary travel books do not: that there are still a few places left in the world so strange and wondrous that a journey there has the power to transform the traveler, even against her will."

From Booklist
Canadian-born Zeppa was 22 when she applied for a teaching position in Bhutan, a tiny country in the Himalayas, nestled between India and China. Leaving her fiance and graduate school applications on hold, Zeppa began the most challenging and transformative experiences of her life. In what would become both an outward and an inward journey, this observant, sensitive, and articulate young woman traveled halfway around the world to her teaching post in a remote village where language, customs, philosophy, food, weather, everything was strange to her. Learning to trust both her own resourcefulness and the support of others, she eventually discovers as much about herself as about the country she ultimately comes to love. Breaking her engagement, she renews her teaching contract in Bhutan and falls in love with a Bhutanese man. Zeppa's description of the terrain is breathtaking; her description of adaptation, growth, and transformation is both comforting and inspirational. This is a story as much about personal triumph as about travel, and about people as well as place. Grace Fill --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Kirkus Reviews
A coming-of-age memoir by a young Canadian woman with a literary bent whose three-year sojourn in a Buddhist kingdom in the Himalayas challenged her values, changed her religion, and altered her lifes course. In 1988, Zeppa, a graduate student hungry for experience and uncertain about her future, took a two-year teaching job offered by the World University Service of Canada that sent her to eastern Bhutan. The shock of isolation and privation was at first overwhelming, but Zeppa soon fell in love with her new world. Initially posted to the tiny, remote village of Pema Gatshel to teach young children, she was transferred several months later to the campus of Sherubtse College, where her students were closer to her own age and where living conditions were somewhat less primitive. It is here that her idyllic view of the Bhutanese undergoes some refinement. She becomes uncomfortably aware of the countrys political problems, of the lack of personal privacy, and of the extreme pressure for social conformity. Still enthralled by the beauty of Bhutans pristine mountain setting and in love with Tshewang, a Bhutanese student (she and her Canadian fianc having long since parted company), Zeppa stays on for a third year. While the early portion of her story is delightfulher enthusiasm for Bhutan and its people is infectious and her descriptions of her encounters with Bhutanese culture are often funny and always enlightening her account of her relationship with her Bhutanese lover falls flat. The ending seems rushed and unfinished. Her pregnancy and subsequent return to Canada, where her son Pema Dorji is born, her return to Bhutan, her marriage to Tshewang there in 1993, and her return to Canadaall this is compressed into a few pages. An uneven account with many perceptive, lyrical passages. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Mademoiselle
"Reading the early pages of this rich, romantic, lushly descriptive memoir of Zeppa's three years in the tiny Buddhist kingdom just south of Tibet, I counted my cushy American blessings....But by the end, I not only got why Zeppa stayed in Bhutan...I actually envied her experience. Her tale is part love story, part history lesson and part Buddhism 101....Zeppa writes romantically without romanticizing, and her fascinating story is something you'll marvel at the first time and want to go back to again and again."

Harper's Bazaar
"Heartfelt...a good reminder that your passport, both literally and figuratively, can open up an entire world of possibilities."

Chicago Tribune
"A joy to read."

Review
"An exotic feast of adventure, wry observation and moving romance. A lovely book."?Peter Gzowski

?Beyond the Sky and the Earth is an exotic and romantic story, an exhilarating testament to the transformative power of travel if one?s mind and heart are open to it.??Toronto Star

??compelling? With empathy, intelligence and self-mocking wit, Zeppa chronicles her passage from sheltered First World child to clearer-eyed citizen of a wider world.??The Globe and Mail

?Zeppa?s depictions of life ? teem with exquisite physical details that reflect her growing interest in Buddhist mindfulness: we taste the impossible sweetness of the withered apples her students bring her, see the thousand shades of green (?lime, olive, pea, apple, grass, pine, moss, malachite, emerald?) that monsoon rains paint her valley, feel the pulsing touch of a student?s hand on her forearm.??Quill & Quire

?Her book suggests?that there are still a few places left in the world so strange and wondrous that a journey there has the power to transform the traveler.??The New York Times Book Review

?Zeppa's description of the terrain is breathtaking; her description of adaptation, growth, and transformation is both comforting and inspirational. This is a story as much about personal triumph as about travel, and about people as well as place.??Booklist

??her enthusiasm for Bhutan and its people is infectious and her descriptions of her encounters with Bhutanese culture are often funny and always enlightening???Kirkus

?Her tale is part love story, part history lesson and part Buddhism 101....Zeppa writes romantically without romanticizing, and her fascinating story is something you'll marvel at the first time and want to go back to again and again.??Mademoiselle

?What makes Beyond the Sky and the Earth so attractive is pretty straightforward: Zeppa is a wonderful writer and storyteller and she has a great tale to tell? Zeppa's sense of adventure and her curiosity about almost everything make Beyond the Sky and the Earth an unusually compelling memoir. We want more, please.?--Toronto Sun

?A fascinating account of a Westerner's gradual acclimation to this secluded Buddhist kingdom??Time Out --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Book Description
In the tradition of Iron and Silk and Bicycle Days, comes the story of a young woman's self-discovery in a foreign land.

At the age of twenty-two, Jamie Zeppa, raised in a small Canadian town by her grandparents, engaged to be married, never having left the North American continent, decided to embark on one great adventure before settling down for a happy, if conventional, life. She sought a place at the outer reaches of the globe and the outer limits of her imagination and ended up in Bhutan, a tiny Buddhist kingdom closed to the West for centuries, an unspoiled land of Himalayan peaks and lush valleys.

Jamie Zeppa went to Bhutan as a teacher on a two-year Canadian government contract. During her early weeks of hardship and disorientation, this neophyte traveler was on the verge of packing it in. After a few weeks more, however, the country and its people worked their alchemy on her; she canceled her trip home for Christmas and requested an extension of her contract. In time, she broke off her engagement. After two years, she was not only in love with the country but also with a young Bhutanese man.

From the pristine, heart-crushing beauty of the landscape to the celebrations and sorrows of its people, Zeppa conjures and captures the true spirit of her unforgettable pilgrim experience. Stirring, poignant, funny, and full of joy, Beyond the Earth and the Sky is at once a classic tale of discovery and adventure, and a love story--between a woman and a country, a people, a man. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Inside Flap Copy
In the tradition of Iron and Silk and Touch the Dragon, Jamie Zeppa?s memoir of her years in Bhutan is the story of a young woman?s self-discovery in a foreign land. It is also the exciting début of a new voice in travel writing.

When she left for the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan in 1988, Zeppa was committing herself to two years of teaching and a daunting new experience. A week on a Caribbean beach had been her only previous trip outside Canada; Bhutan was on the other side of the world, one of the most isolated countries in the world known as the last Shangri-La, where little had changed in centuries and visits by foreigners were restricted. Clinging to her bags full of chocolate, hair conditioner and Immodium, she began the biggest challenge of her life, with no idea she would fall in love with the country and with a Bhutanese man, end up spending nine years in Bhutan, and begin a literary career with her account of this transformative journey.

At her first posting in a remote village of eastern Bhutan, she is plunged into an overwhelmingly different culture with squalid Third World conditions and an impossible language. Her house has rats and fleas and she refuses to eat the local food, fearing the rampant deadly infections her overly protective grandfather warned her about. Gradually, however, her fear vanishes. She adjusts, begins to laugh, and is captivated by the pristine mountain scenery and the kind students in her grade 2 class. She also begins to discover for herself the spiritual serenity of Buddhism.

A transfer to the government college of Sherubtse, where the housing conditions are comparatively luxurious and the students closer to her own age, gives her a deeper awareness of Bhutan?s challenges: the lack of personal privacy, the pressure to conform, and the political tensions. However, her connection to Bhutan intensifies when she falls in love with a student, Tshewang, and finds herself pregnant. After a brief sojourn in Canada to give birth to her son, Pema Dorji, she marries Tshewang and makes Bhutan her home for another four years.

Zeppa?s personal essay about her culture shock on arriving in Bhutan won the 1996 CBC/Saturday Night literary competition and appeared in the magazine. She flew home to accept the prize, where people encouraged her to pursue her writing. Her letters from Bhutan also featured on CBC?s Morningside. The book that grew out of this has been published in Canada and the United States to ecstatic reviews, followed by British, German, Dutch, Italian and Spanish editions.

Although cultural differences finally separated Jamie and Tshewang in 1997 while she was writing the book and she returned to Canada, she will always feel at home in Bhutan. Zeppa shares her compelling insights into this land and culture, but Beyond the Sky and the Earth is more than a travel book. With rich, spellbinding prose and bright humour, it describes a personal journey in which Zeppa acquires a deeper understanding of what it means to leave one?s home behind, and undergoes a spiritual transformation. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Back Cover

"An exotic feast of adventure, wry observation and moving romance. A lovely book." --Peter Gzowski