Book Review: “Yangchhen” & “Turning Point”

Beware of Yangchhens around you.

There is an African saying, “that until the lions have their own historian, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” This is exactly the core message in Pema Wangchuk’s book ‘Turning Point’ and ‘Yangchhen, the Mastermind.’ The author had his side of the story to tell.

His maiden book, ‘The Turning Point’ published in 2019 is a story on the news that made headline when Kuensel covered a piece on the ten faculty members in Taktse college who were alleged in sexual harassment of their students in 2019.  

About, ‘Yangchhen’ published this year, 2023 is also a story on the news that shook the entire nation about a high-level sedition case that created waves around the country in 2019. So, basically these two books are like an outcome of a football match split up into two halves, where in the 1st half of the game, the story of ‘Turning Point’ took place, and in the 2nd half, the story of ‘Yangchhen’ took place. What is most interesting is that in the entire play, the author had been a part of it, twice conceding a goal of the victim.

PaSSu Diary in a recent interview at BOOKNESE was right in saying that the author first lives his story, and then afterward writes about it. However, it will be only after reading the book, one can feel the pain the author might have gone through those days. I feel how painful it might have been for the author to swim back in reveries, dig up all the nasty stories, mull over it all again, write it down, give life to re-live it to the stories that ruined his life. It takes Charles Bukowski’s endurance to do that!

Written in a journalistic flair, ‘Turning Point’ has 32 chapters written in 128 pages, and ‘Yangchhen’ in 30 chapters within 222 pages. For me, these two books will remain my first ever record in having read two books at once in one sitting. It is an enthralling best-seller. Written in first person narrative technique, it is a story of male character Pema Wangchuk who recounts all the incidents he has gone through in the Taktse case and the Sedition case. It uses simple language, written in a hard news report writing style, direct to the point, and with no subtexts meaning. All loud and clear.

Considering the severity of the story, many readers have a little confusion whether all the incidents that are narrated are true to the core, and therefore what type of novel it is. Let me try. In my opinion, ‘Turning Point’ is a work of non-fiction as the author declared on the back of the book. And about ‘Yangchhen’ it is Contemporary Realistic Fiction. Contemporary, because the story has currency in the present time. Realistic, because apart from name changes of the real characters and places, it is an account of a true story that has taken place, and finally, Fiction, because as a storyteller, it also incorporates the art of story-teller in telling his stories. Moreover, I felt that considering the context of his novels, the author had excelled in maintaining an utmost loyalty to the truth he lives by, and second with an obligation towards readers (citizens) to make his side of the story heard.  

The story of Pema Wangchuk (the narrator) is really inspirational and eye-opening. I hope ‘Yangchhen’ will go down in the history of Bhutanese literature as one of the best-selling books, because it is a cautionary tale for an everyday life of a man to be aware of Yangchhens around us.

Through your stories and book, I have learned that the number 1 skill in life is to NEVER GIVE UP! I just get goosebumps thinking what if you have not made it here.