Ann Tashi Slater

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Ann Tashi Slater's work  has been published by The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The New York Times, Guernica, Tin House, AGNI, Granta, and the HuffPost, among others, and she's a contributing editor at Tricycle. She recently finished a memoir about reconnecting with her Tibetan roots. Visit her at: www.anntashislater.com.

Stories

Cover Photo: Illustration by Sirin Thada for Catapult
My Great-Grandfather’s Saddle Rug Helps Me Remember a Tibet That’s Gone

I borrowed a bicycle and explored, in the same way my great-grandfather had gone about on his pony sixty years earlier.

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Ann Tashi Slater
Nov 30, 2020
Columns | Darjeeling Journal
Cover Photo: a grey-brown bronze statue of Michel de Montaigne, depicted here as an aging man with a bald head, a mustache, and short beard, wearing a neck ruff, robes, and a chain of office
My Father, Montaigne, and the Art of Living

When my father died in 2012, I inherited his well-read copy of Montaigne’s ‘Essais.’

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Ann Tashi Slater
Oct 29, 2020
Arts & Culture | Books
Cover Photo: Photograph by Ngo Quang Minh/Flickr
How a Tibetan Turquoise Pendant Keeps Me Close to Home

In giving me her pendant, was my mother not only wishing me well on my journey but handing over our family’s story?

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Ann Tashi Slater
Sep 30, 2020
Columns | Darjeeling Journal
Cover Photo: A colorful illustration of a monk encircled by items necessary to help the deceased travel through their bardo: a horse, skulls, jade, a bird, a hat, a dress, and a bowl.
Tibetan Death Horoscopes, Mothers and Daughters, and Legacy-Breaking

In my grief over my grandmother’s death, I derived solace from the idea that something could still be done to benefit her, that she hadn’t left us but was just in a different place.

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Ann Tashi Slater
Jun 04, 2020
Columns | Darjeeling Journal
Cover Photo: Illustration based on a photograph of the author's grandparents dancing together in Darjeeling, c. 1940
What My Tibetan Grandmother Taught Me About Lasting Love

I felt sure my grandmother’s stories, her faith in marriage, had no bearing on my life plan.

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Ann Tashi Slater
Apr 29, 2020
Columns | Darjeeling Journal
Cover Photo: A photo of a walkway leading to a colorful yellow, green, and red building, rainbow streamers hanging above the stone path. A monkey inspects the grass on the side.
Walking Paths to Self and Family in Darjeeling

In Darjeeling, the landscape and my familyscape seemed to be living, breathing beings, the paths like veins and the stories like the flow of blood.

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Ann Tashi Slater
Jan 09, 2020
Columns | Darjeeling Journal
Cover Photo: Photo courtesy of the author
What The Tibetan Book of the Dead Teaches Us About Life

When my grandmother died, lamas stayed for five days next to her body, guiding her through bardo by reading from The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

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Ann Tashi Slater
Dec 02, 2019
Columns | Darjeeling Journal
Cover Photo: photo from the Himalayas
Mountains, Monasteries, and Myths: What I Discovered While Living in My Darjeeling Family Home

After a youth spent trying to ignore my Asian heritage, I came looking for it. My journey turned out to be the beginning of an excavation that continues to this day.

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Ann Tashi Slater
Oct 28, 2019
Columns | Darjeeling Journal
Cover Photo: Photograph by Maki/Flickr
Learning to Cook in Japan, I Fed My Family and My Sense of Self

The bento lunches the hoikuen expected mothers to produce were an exercise in artistry. But I didn’t care about making the perfect bento.

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Ann Tashi Slater
Aug 29, 2019
Columns | Tokyo Journal
Cover Photo: Photograph by Pixabay/Pexels
How I Found Sanctuary Living in a Japanese Teahouse

Above all, the teahouse was a room of my own, the first I’d ever had.

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Ann Tashi Slater
Jul 30, 2019
Columns | Tokyo Journal