Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal

Conor Grennan is an American author and founder of Next Generation Nepal, a nonprofit that seeks to reunite trafficked Nepalese children with their families. Grennan volunteered in Nepal between 2004 and 2007. In 2010, Grennan published Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal, a memoir about his time and work in Nepal. The book was a New York Times best seller and a #1 international best-selling book. In addition to Little Princes, Grennan published a young-adult fiction book, The Hadley Academy for the Improbably Gifted, in 2019.

Grennan is a white American man who first travels to Nepal in 2004. Intent on having an experience that will impress his friends, Grennan undergoes the most significant transformation in the memoir as he develops a deep attachment to the children living at the orphanage where he has volunteered. At the outset, he sees Nepal and the Little Princes orphanage as a three-month pitstop before establishing a different, better life somewhere else. By the end of the book, however, Nepal and its lost children are at the center of his daily life, professional plans, and heart. After that first volunteering experience, Grennan returns three times to Nepal to help care for the children and to help find their families.