Prema, a young woman adrift in war-torn Nepal, with little to bind her to her family, village and country, wins a green card in a US government lottery and emigrates to Los Angeles. In this unfamiliar metropolis she struggles to invent a life she can call her own, even as love and sexual awakening transform her. And in the end, a chance discovery—of the endangered El Segundo Blue butterfly—brings her to a fragile sense of belonging.

This book is out of print and will no longer be available in Aleph editions.