Lama Karma Chötso, a Tibetan Buddhist nun who has led a South Florida meditation community for nearly three decades, will appear at Books & Books in Coral Gables on Monday to discuss and sign her debut novel, "Rinpoche."

The free event begins at 7 p.m. at the bookstore's Aragon Avenue location, 265 Aragon Ave. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

Chötso's 496-page novel, published in May by Balboa Press, follows a character named Tenzin Rinpoche, a Tibetan child in the 1970s whose family is killed during the Chinese occupation. He escapes to India and eventually reaches the United States in the 1990s, where he struggles with unresolved trauma while building a new life. The story explores whether spiritual practice and human connection can offer a path toward healing.

Chötso's own path shares some contours with her protagonist's journey. Her center's website describes her as the first ordained Buddhist of any Tibetan lineage to live in South Florida. She arrived in late 1996 and founded the region's first Kagyu Buddhist center in Hollywood the following year, originally named Kagyu Shedrup Chöling. The center later moved to Miami and was renamed Open Awareness Buddhist Center in 2017.

Chötso began practicing the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism in 1982 after meeting Kalu Rinpoche in New York City. She was ordained as a novice nun in 1986 and completed a traditional three-year, three-month secluded meditation retreat at a monastery in upstate New York in 1990.

Beyond her meditation teaching, Chötso spent seven years teaching meditation and tai chi to inmates at Broward Correctional Facility for women, served as a volunteer chaplain for Hospice Care of Broward County, and lectured at Florida International University, St. Thomas University and Barry University. She also founded a Kagyu center in Lima, Peru.

"Rinpoche" is her first novel, though she published a poetry collection, "Dances of Dreams," in 2014.

The evening will focus on the novel's themes of war, trauma and healing. Copies will be available for purchase at the event for $30.99. An RSVP through Eventbrite grants general admission, but seating is not guaranteed. The event runs until 8 p.m.

Coming up

• Monday, 7 p.m. — Lama Karma Chötso discusses and signs "Rinpoche" at Books & Books, 265 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables. Free; RSVP via Eventbrite. Doors at 6:30 p.m.