Bhutan to Blacktown

I lost my possessions, my salary, my status, my career, my country. And in that fall, I gained everything. Bhutan is known as the land of Gross National Happiness, a Buddhist Shangri-La hidden in the Himalayas. But in the late 1980s, Bhutan waged a brutal ethnic-cleansing campaign against its citizens of Nepali ancestry. Forced to flee Bhutan, Om Dhungel spent six years as a refugee in Nepal before he arrived in Australia. Today Om is a respected community leader in western Sydney, consulted frequently by government and settlement organisations on refugee policy. Written with Walkley Awardwinning journalist James Button, Bhutan to Blacktown tells of Om Dhungel's remarkable journey from a village on the Himalayan ridges and life as a refugee in Kathmandu, to, eventually, Blacktown, Australia. It is a story of grit and determination, humour and irrepressible optimism.