Secret Places features new fiction, poetry, and nonfiction prose from Nepal. The collection allows Western readers a rare glimpse into contemporary Nepal and the Himalayan region through their literature. Prior to Nepal's constitutional reforms in 1990, poets and fiction writers were often jailed and censored for speaking out. Nevertheless, they developed ways to discuss social and political issues in their creative works and to express the lives of Nepal's diverse people. Since 1990, Nepali writers have become increasingly outspoken on such sensitive issues as caste, politics, and the status of women.