The Fiction of truth, the truth of fiction

Dear friends, family and readers: A very wonderful new year 2012 to you all! Thank you so much for your wonderful support and enthusiasm during my publishing struggles and adventures. I wanted to let all of you know that "The End of the World" is about to be published in Kindle (in around 24 hours, as we speak) and that you can soon download it on your Kindles. I will also soon have my novel "Loving the Enemy" available as an e-book online shortly. Thank you all again for your thoughtful support and love of literature. I hope this new year brings you new joy and new directions for spiritual and planetary growth. Love to all, Sushma

The Daily Times has a reportage of our reading: Ameena Hussein, writer and publisher, Sri Lanka; Sushma Joshi, writer and film-maker, Nepal; Ayesha Salman of SDPI Pakistan; and Harris Khalique, human rights activist and development practitioner of Pakistan, said the literature works as a means to expand minds and to provide deep insights on social and political issues that should be expressed to attain the greater goal of human development. Read the article here .

I visited Pakistan from 12-17 December. This was my first time there, and I was surprised by several things. Stay tuned for my op-ed! Here are the links to the conference in which I presented in the panel on literature, titled appropriately `Literature in South Asia: building bridges through fact and fiction`, along with Ayesha Salman of Pakistan and Ameena Hussein of Sri Lanka. It was a very interesting conference that brought together people from all over South Asia. Perhaps the most interesting part was the swing towards "looking East". For more, read on: Crises in West necessitate looking towards East for development

Fiction and the Facts: Writing the History of Development in Nepal Sushma Joshi* Literature and social change has always gone hand in hand since the invention of the written word. As a writer, I have always written fiction and non-fiction simultaneously. I have been a regular contributor to the Kathmandu Post since 1998. For the past two years, I wrote a widely-read op-ed column, “The Global and the Local.” My intention was to bring liberal and critical thinking skills to a Nepali middle class readership, and to highlight social justice issues as if they mattered. I feel I have succeeded, when I see young people with good education actively competing to get their works printed in the newspaper. Just as I draw upon fictional techniques to engage the reader in serious reportage, I do the opposite with fiction—I do not leave it all up to my imagination, but often draw from the treasure trove of real life stories I have heard as a journalist and social change activist in Nepal. My aim...

We must look towards East for sustainable development? Pakistan Today Wednesday, 14th Dec 2011 Islamabad Given the multiple crises in the West, daunting challenge of poverty at home, and the emerging needs to look towards East, paradigms of sustainable development in South Asia need to be redefined, said the speakers at the inaugural session of 14th Sustainable Development Conference (SDC) ‘Re-defining Paradigms of Sustainable Development in South Asia’ organised by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) on Tuesday. The region, which hosts half of the global poor population, needs to redefine its approach towards poverty reduction. Its orientation towards development also needs to be redefined with greater regional cooperation and integration. Syed Naveed Qamar, Minister for Water and Power, said South Asian region has a common history and a shared future; instead of embroiled with the different kinds of conflicts tormenting the lives of billion of people, we should coo...

You can now listen to ten minutes of my story "Cheese" online. Here is the link on Podomatic. Let me know what you think!: http://sushma.podomatic.com/entry/2011-11-29T05_15_49-08_00

I found my story "Law and Order " had been discussed in a college paper titled  "Identity and Authenticity in George Orwell’s  Burmese Days : The Pukka Sahib Englishman in British Colonial Burma" by Patti Fish Stephens of Ursuline college.  Please find the link below-reading it may inspire teachers to use my short story in teaching the same issues. Here is a description of the Quill, where this paper was published: " Named in honor of the now-defunct campus newspaper,  The Quill  is a showcase for student academic writing.  It features student writing that has been nominated as worthy of distinction by instructors.  By making public examples of the fine student writing produced at Ursuline, we hope to inspire more excellence in future student writing. "     Here is the link to the Quill and to the paper:  http://www.ursuline.edu/academics/quill.cfm

I will be in Oxford in July 2012 to talk about my writings on the Nepali diaspora in Thailand and Myanmar. I traveled around those two countries last year as an Asia Fellow, with support from the Asian Scholarship Foundation. (Here's the Asia Fellows from 2010-2011. I am on the far left. If I look fat, its because I was eating too much Thai food!) My aim is to write a book like Tiziano Terzani's "The Fortune-teller Told Me".  All my friends who like to mock my fascination with astrology, fortune-telling and prophesizing the future--please read this book! It is possible to be a journalist for a publication as serious as Der Speigel, do excellent reportage and still weave these fascinating tidbids into your book, as Terzani did. If you have a literature related group in Oxford or London and want me to come and read from my book(s), contact me at: sansarmagazine@gmail.com. I haven't been in the UK since 1995--I'm looking forward to this visit...

Look at the gorgeous Istanbul Literary Review. Don't you just wish you were in Istanbul! They published my "A Bowl of Zuppa" in their May 2011 issue. A BOWL OF ZUPPA Sushma Joshi The dwarf who serves me the bowl of heartwarming, cheek-blushingly hot bowl of zuppa on that cold winter’s evening is short and squat, with a warm, stretched-out smile. The cloth on the table is cotton, checked with red and yellow. The tabletop is filled with glassware, like an apothecary’s shop. Olive oil and vinegar sparkle with red and yellow clarity inside elegant bottles. Wine glasses in different shapes and sizes stand side by side. Sunshine-yellow napkins nestle in the rounded depths of wooden holders. “Roma! Roma!” The waiter is impatient as I try to dig further into the heritage of this tantalizing zuppa—Genoa? Sardegna? The steam rises from the thick broth. Who’s the cook? I ask, as if I can extract the recipe by finding out the exact identity of the person who put...

World Literature Today just sent me the new link where they had put my story "The Little Girl Who Died." They have a new website and some of the links were broken. So you can read it in FIRST WORDS  here .

Hi friends, fans and readers! I am very pleased and happy to have my short story "Betrayal" translated in Japanese. Kazue of Happano.org has translated it, and here's the story in Japanese ! And they also have the story up in English , too!

Here's an article about Sansar Media and why I started it, by the South China Morning Post, Hongkong. Click on the image to enlarge it.

Dear Friends! "The End of the World" is now published through Sansar Media. Here is a great review of "The End of the World" by Guru Magazine, the Friday supplement of the Bangkok Post. The book is now available in Asia Books, Bangkok. Don't forget to pick up a copy if you are in the Swarnabhoomi airport. (Note this book--or any other edition of my book--is now no longer legally available in Kathmandu. Due to unaccountable and illegal practices of publishers and bookstores in Kathmandu, I only sell my books outside Nepal. If you would like to get a copy and support the writer, please wait to purchase the legal edition.)

Alan Cheuse reviews a collection of short fiction from authors in South Asia, called  The Lotus Singers . The stories are from writers in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh — among other countries.   "The Lotus Singers" collection includes my short story "Law and Order." ________________________________________________________ ROBERT SIEGEL, host: A good book doesn't have to be science fiction to transport us to distant worlds. A new anthology of stories called "The Lotus Singers" accomplishes that. It features the work of writers from a variety of South Asian countries, and Alan Cheuse finds the authors' perspectives well worth visiting. ALAN CHEUSE: First, let me do some numbers for you. "The Lotus Singers" gives us nearly 20 contemporary pieces of short fiction from a number South Asian nations mainly India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh; stories either written in English or...

Our expectations descend through chasms of arcane wonder, where the Internet shapes marvelous new communities, even as the Academy breaks the chains of worn convention and formal discipline, sending forth a new class of scholars to explore the frontiers of unique realms. Amidst this progress, strangely enough and yet quite appropriately, consciousness rebels. In these pages are stories, poems, and essays that are exuberant, eloquent, and original—where expression and intelligence commingle in a flash of awakening. Whether this new consciousness is human or perhaps something greater remains to be seen, but by looking into our emanations we might find an answer. The first anthology to be released by International Authors, Emanations showcases the work of sixteen writers from around the world. With illustrations by Kai Robb, Dario Rivarossa and Vitasta Raina. Find it in Amazon .

"After the Floods" is now printed in " Stories for Sendai ", an anthology whose profits will go to benefit people who were affected by the earthquake in Japan this year. You can buy the book via Amazon through this link here . An author interview is printed here .

The Discovery of the High Lama, a short story I wrote around 2002, was published by East of the Web. You can read it here.