Book Review: Forty-Nine Days, Sonam Tsomo Chashutsang

cover of Forty-Nine Days, featuring a beautiful sketch of a Tibetan woman wearing a red chupa, traditional Tibetan dress, with ruddy cheekbones, by Tenzin Kesang

In her debut poetry collection, Sonam Tsomo Chashutsang grieves her mother’s death through the Tibetan Buddhist belief in the bardo, a period of forty-nine days in which the soul is guided towards its future rebirth in one of six realms of existence.

Starting with the day her sister in India messaged her to notify her of her mother’s death, Tsomo-la takes us on a forty-nine days’ journey of reflection as she reminiscences each day on her mother and their relationship.

Eventually, we see Tsomo-la start to transform into her own mother-figure, performing the same rituals that her mother performed while alive, such as washing with a particular soap or collecting pebbles.

Three days out of the forty-nine are written in Tibetan, and it is able to be very roughly translated by Google Translate. While writing in English allows a more international reach, I think these three poems were most likely written for her mother to read, not us.

This is a quiet little collection that speaks in echoes, and it certainly won’t be the last we hear of her.