The Fiction of truth, the truth of fiction

You can read my author interview in Friday magazine  here. My answer to this question: "What is one book that everyone must read?" is tongue-in-cheek. Obviously there is only one book in the world whose proponents think should be read by everyone. Open my interview to find out which one! My second answer is also right in line with my beliefs about what kind of book everyone should actually be reading. Those of you who have read my articles over the years, advocating for food and planetary security through less meat eating, will understand why I answered as I did.

My short story "The Fourth Child" is now published in the October issue of Living Magazine. Buy the big fat copy!  Check out the cover here: http://www.living.com.np/

A version of this appeared in the World Literature Today in 2010. THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. The story does not represent any moment that occurred during the real civil conflict in Nepal. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The little girl is a metaphor for all the innocent people who died in the crossfire.  THE LITTLE GIRL WHO DIED SUSHMA JOSHI Major Krishna Basnet jerked his bitten hand back, as if stung. Tooth marks, where the seven-year old girl had bitten him, left dark indentations in the hollow between his thumb and forefinger. The Major stared at the tear-stained face of the little girl. Then he spat into her defiant eyes. “You should have learnt to respect your elders, you bitch.”   A cold moon glittered in the black sky. No wind stirred the leaves. The Major’s voice carried upwards, towards where Ambika lay, hiding. Ambika could hear and see everything from where she was—a r...

I took a look at Robin Williams birthchart through the jyotish system of astrology today (note this is NOT the same system as the horoscope people read in the newspapers, which is sun sign based astrology.) There is really nothing surprising about his suicide once you see the chart. Williams has a formation that’s common for celebrities: His Moon is with Rahu, in lagna, or ascendant. Rahu signifies great fame, glamor, and also electrical lights and methods of communications. Rahu also signifies alcohol and drugs. Together with Moon, it often signifies mental illness as well. Rahu matures, or shows its full strength, at age 42. Actress Catherina Zeta Jones, who came out saying she had bipolar manic-depression at 42, is one of many other celebrities who manifest this.  When Rahu is placed in the First House, Ketu falls in the Seventh House, the house of marriage and relationship (Rahu and Ketu are always 7 houses away from each other). Ketu is a signifier for detachment ...

And in case you own a Nook, here's my play  Maté al padre de mi mejor amiga in the Barnes and Noble website for you to download.

After reading Francisco Goldman’s tribute to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I wanted to know where the magical realism came from. So I went to my trusty astrological chart calculator and plugged in: March 6, 1927, Aracataca, Colombia And this is what I got.  An Aries moon: Aries is the first sign in the zodiac. People born under Aries are fire. They embody   the start of new things, and they blaze new trails. They can often be great leaders. President Obama is born under an Aries moon as well. Mars in second house: Second house is the house of speech (and also material wealth). Mars   is the planet of passion and energy. Those with Mars in second house often have powerful, almost militaristic abilities in speech. Mars and Saturn aspect each other. Saturn confers discipline and the ability for hard work to the fiery energy of Mars. Without this combination of Mars and Saturn, no great works come to fruition. Rahu in third, in Gemini:   Rahu is the...

A young man from England who I recently met sent me this email after reading my book: Sat, Apr 19, 2014 I very much enjoyed reading your short stories in the Prediction. Most of all I liked the historical ones, the Promise and the Prediction. Rana-era Nepal was vividly realised, the characters seemed very true to the period and to their social station, and the synthesis of traditional Sanskritic forms of belief and practice, such as astrology, with modernity -- as represented by democracy and revolution, intruding on the feudal court-politics of the late Ranas -- made for a highly satisfying parable of Nepal's rites of passage through the twentieth century. It occured to me that I've not come across any other examples of Nepali historical fiction, in English at least, and this would be a very fruitful genre for writers to take up. I would love to see you turn your hand to a historical novel, maybe one that features astrology as a major component, since you seem to know a lot...

Through a spyglass SEWA BHATTARAI Though Sushma Joshi names her book The Prediction, it is not very predictable. Most stories in this collection have surprise endings, or even begin from strange subject lines. For example, there is her first story about a man getting lost in Mongolia, and another about a satellite that crashes among the Himalaya, both very unusual subjects for Nepali writers. Sushma sets the tone right at the start with a very readable story. The Discovery of the High Lama has an intriguing subject matter and enough dialogue so that the reader is not bored. Her plot, too, holds the reader’s interest till the very end. And that perhaps defines most of her stories: unusual subject matters, lots of dialogue, and interesting plots. When it comes to the subjects she addresses, they are a wide variety: From a Nepali drummer making a life in Europe to an astrologer in Mohan Shumsher’s court. Sushma seems to know a lot about each of these subject matters, and the tid...

Once in a while, the Internet sends you a delightful find.  And none more so than this one, on Nepali New Year's day. "The End of the World" is listed in this incredible list compiled by Ng Yi-Sheng, who decided to compile a list of 100 books that reflects the world as it is, demographically. The list is available in List Challenges, and it is a list than any author would be honored to find himself/herself in. Not just because its a list of books that I would love to read (all of them), but also because there's a certain sense of comfort and "coming home" to a list that does include the breadth and diversity of the world, as it is. I say this beats any "100 books" list compiled by TIME. Of course, that's a bit on the self-promotional side, you may say. Well, even if I wasn't on the list, I'd still say it's a better list than any compiled by TIME! Just click on it, you'll see. In his interesting blog "Around th...

My story "The Prediction" is now out in Himalaya, a journal of the Association of Nepal and Himalaya studies published by Yale University. You can download it here.

 Thought I'd share "A Boleria for Love" with you all on this beautiful spring day. Needless to say, a love story about an older woman/younger man was inevitably rejected by the finest literary magazines (what else was I expecting?). I wasted a bit of my time submitting this to the world's "greatest" lit magazines, the editors of which may then have gone on to recruit writers to write nastier versions of older woman/younger man stories, which then went on to win gushing accolades and giant financial awards/rewards for misogynistic versions of my story... But never mind, there's still time to read the original and be inspired here! And of course, don't forget to buy a copy of La.Lit magazine, which will be printing this story shortly in its new edition. And also of course buy a copy of "The Prediction" and read the rest of my other stories as well. A BOLERIA FOR LOVE Xavier did not know, when he cut out the piece of newspri...