Manjushree Thapa (born 1968 in Kathmandu) is a Nepalese–born Canadian essayist, fiction writer, translator and editor.[1] She is one of the first English writers of Nepali descent to be published internationally. Forget Kathmandu and The Tutor of History are some of her most well-known works.
Manjushree Thapa | |
|---|---|
मञ्जुश्री थापा | |
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| Born | 1968 (age 55–56) |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Alma mater | University of Washington |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Years active | 1989–present |
| Notable work | Forget Kathmandu (2005)The Tutor of History (2001) |
| Parents |
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| Relatives |
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| Website | www |
Biography edit
Manjushree Thapa was born in 1968 in Kathmandu to former Foreign Minister and Nepal Rastra Bank governor Bhekh Bahadur Thapa and public health expert Dr. Rita Thapa. She grew up in Nepal, Canada and in United States.[2] She began to write upon completing her BFA in photography at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her first book was Mustang Bhot in Fragments (1992). In 2001 she published the novel The Tutor of History, which she had begun as her MFA thesis in the creative writing program at the University of Washington in Seattle, which she attended as a Fulbright scholar. Her best known book is Forget Kathmandu: An Elegy for Democracy (2005), published just weeks before the royal coup in Nepal on 1 February 2005. The book was shortlisted for the Lettre Ulysses Award in 2006.[3]
After the publication of the book, Thapa left the country to live in Canada. In 2007, she published a short story collection, Tilled Earth. In 2009 she published a biography of a Nepali environmentalist, A Boy from Siklis: The Life and Times of Chandra Gurung. The following year, she published a novel, Seasons of Flight. In 2011, she published a nonfiction collection, The Lives We Have Lost: Essays and Opinions on Nepal. Her latest book, published in South Asia in 2016, is a novel, All Of Us in Our Own Lives. She has also contributed op-eds to the New York Times.[4][5] Her translation of Indra Bahadur Rai's There's a Carnival Today was conducted under the 2017 PEN America Heim Translation Grant.[6]
Bibliography edit
Fiction
- The Tutor of History (2001)
- Tilled Earth (2007)
- Seasons of Flight (2010)
- All Of Us in Our Own Lives (2016)
Non-Fiction
- Mustang Bhot in Fragments (1992)
- Forget Kathmandu: An Elegy for Democracy (2005)
- A Boy from Siklis (2009)
- The Lives We Have Lost (2012)
Translation
- A Leaf in a Begging Bowl by Ramesh Vikal (2000)
- The Country is Yours (2009)
- There's a Carnival Today by Indra Bahadur Rai (2017)
See also edit
References edit
- ^ Kathmandu Centre for Social Research and Development. Nepal Studies (2005). Studies in Nepali history and society. Mandala Book Point. p. 459. Retrieved 5 April 2011.
"Senior" Nepali language writers have not been able to come to terms with the fact that Manjushree Thapa and Samrat Upadhyay have been established as the two important representatives of contemporary writings in English. ...
- ^ "Manjushree Thapa: The content of democracy is social, psychological, emotional". The Kathmandu Post. Retrieved 2021-12-03.
- ^ "Forget Kathmandu: An Elegy for Democracy". openDemocracy. 2006-09-15. Retrieved 2012-07-15.
- ^ Thapa, Manjushree (22 February 2011). "Nepal's Stalled Revolution". The New York Times.
- ^ Thapa, Manjushree (6 May 2010). "Waiting at the Top of the World". New York Times. Retrieved 22 May 2016.
- ^ "2017 PEN America Literary Awards Winners - PEN America". PEN America. 2017-03-27. Retrieved 2017-08-02.