Fiction

भोटको के कुरा

Ratna Mani Nepal | June 15, 2015

पार्टी वार्तामा जुटेको समय थियो । त्यसैले पार्टी खुला थियो ।

No sky from this hotel room

Prateebha Tuladhar | July 8, 2014

Love is the huge suffering that grows and grows within you like cancer when the one you love isn’t within your reach. Sometimes it’s not even about physical reach, but just a deep longing that makes us miss people, even when they are close enough to touch.

मेरो नाम

अमर न्यौपाने | October 13, 2013

किरियापुत्री बसेजस्ता डाँडापाखा। नौनी पग्लेझैँ हाम्रो घरवरिपरिका डाँडापाखाबाट हिउँ पग्लिन थाल्यो। हेर्दाहेर्दै केही दिनमै रापिला हातले हिउँको लुगा फुकालिदिएर डाँडापाखालाई बुङ्गै बनाइदियो घामले।

डाँडापाखा पनि मेरो शरीरजस्तै उराठ देखिए। मनै नरमाइलो भयो।

Surviving Shillong

Prajwal Parajuly | October 7, 2013

 (excerpted from a short story by Prajwal Parajuly, who is on the shortlist for the 2013 Dylan Thomas Prize) Studying abroad was a malaise that was yet to afflict the northeast the way it had swept over the rest of India. It was uncommon, especially during Asim’s times, for a native of Shillong to study […]

Off to school I go

Sunil Nepali | September 24, 2013

The sudden drop in water pressure and the croaking shower awakened me to the muddy reality swirling around my feet. I stepped aside for a moment, but the water stayed murky, slimy. So I killed the shower and moved to the washbasin, but the faucet gushed forth something equally fetid. The signs pointed to a […]

Sine-ful love

Sami Ahmad Khan | August 11, 2013

An off-white ceiling fan coated with grime, probably installed during colonial times, whirred noisily as it spat a hot, dry gust that burnt wherever it touched bare skin. Suppressing a sudden impulse to scratch his groin, a tall, thin man in his early twenties

Writing Nepal, 3rd: Flames and fables

Prabhat Gautam | July 16, 2013

It was as if someone had shot a gun in the house, and all windows were thrown open to get the smell of sulfur out of the corners, Rabin thought as he opened his eyes and looked around the room, washed with the sunlight streaming in through the east and south windows. He hadn

Writing Nepal, 2nd: Pep talk

Muna Gurung | July 5, 2013

I am not easily given to liking second-person stories. Often I find the mode artificial and gimmicky. But Pep Talk had a no nonsense quality about it that immediately sucked me in. I liked the narrator, and there was clearly a story here: one of love and heartache, of sexual experimentation and discovery. The telling […]

Writing Nepal, 1st: Let the rain come down

Samyak Shertok | June 27, 2013

Krishna wakes to the sound of the downpour rioting on the slate roof and the wind churning at the battered pine windows. A deep sleeper, he hasn