There is nowhere that is not permeable by modernity. The isles of Greece, the jungles of Africa, the hidden cities of Peru, the Aran Islands, all now have their airstrips, their tourist trails, their middens of plastic bottles, their satellite dishes. Even outer space is cluttered with our detritus, and there are human footsteps still on the Moon. Spiti, perched in the folds of the Himalayas on the border between India and Chinese-occupied Tibet, was for most of the second millennium of the Christian era a "forbidden valley", where Tibetan customs and rituals had survived virtually unchanged over the centuries. In the 10th century, when Spiti was part of the Guge Kingdom of Upper Western Tibet, the Tibetan Buddhist scholar and saint Rinchen Zangpo built the temple of Tabo, which, with its murals and statues, is still gloriously intact. In the 19th century, Spiti came under British rule, and subsequently was subsumed into independent India.
Ironically, after the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1949, Spiti again took on "forbidden- wandering religious actors - remaining in Spiti was a former disco-dancing champion.
Spiti: The Forbidden Valley is a book of dramatic and evocative black-and-white photographs by the English anthropologist and documentary photographer Patrick Sutherland, who spent six months in the valley between 1993 and 1998. The result is a fascinating study of one of the last surviving outposts of an ancient culture.
In his introduction, Tensing Sonam, whose parents were among those who fled Tibet in 1949, writes of the changes that have occurred in Spiti even since 1998, but is unexpectedly optimistic, or at least hopeful, for the future of the 10,000 native people who live there.
He notes the newly built, tin-roofed concrete buildings put up by the Indian government in the main town, Kaza, the STD phone booth in the middle of the bazaar, the four-wheel-drive taxis, but is nevertheless relieved to find that "the old town still retained some of its medieval charm..."
The most striking characteristic of Patrick Sutherland's photographs is their honesty. He makes no attempt to prettify Spiti or sentimentalise its inhabitants. Here is an extended portrait of hard lives lived in a hard place against heavy odds. He catches the hardship, but also the courage of the Spiti people, their gaiety, stubbornness, and loyalty to tradition.
Looking at these pictures, one can almost feel the sting and sharpness of the thin, icy air of this hidden place.
At the end of his visit to Spiti, which still means so much to him and his fellow exiles, Tenzing Sonam wondered if the people there would "somehow achieve that elusive balance between the fullness of their traditional life and the inroads of the modern world". You can play a small part in that endeavour, for a proportion of the proceeds from the sale of the book will go to the Rinchen Zangpo Society for Spiti Development, which is working to preserve Spiti traditions and provide education for Spiti's children.
John Banville is Chief Literary Critic and Associate Literary Editor of The Irish Times