Book 3: Third Book Read in 2013

The Gurkha’s Daughter – PRAJWAL PARAJULI

Recently this book was much talked in news and social media. I eagerly appreciated the success of a new Gurkha writer trying his luck with English literature. 

The physical appearance of the book is perfect and touchy. As I pushed through the book, I was amazed with the use of Nepali words across the book indiscriminately.

  ‘The Cleft’- the first story of the book made me think “what is story telling?”. It’s a collection of unique characters who ride a taxi from Kathmandu to Birtamod. That is the story. The subsequent stories leverage the readers’ expectation back to original and even improve them. Each story has its own center and a diverse plot. ‘A Father’s Journey’ and ‘Missed Blessing’ are great stories, psychology based, which are to be read and realized. Other stories are for entertainment. ‘No Land is Her Land’- a story of a girl with multiple unsuccessful marriages of a Bhutanese Gurkha Girl in Nepal, could force the readers to generalize a gloomy image of the Gurkhas spilled from Bhutan. ‘The Immigration’, a story centered in Manhattan, USA puts reader in restaurants and feeds them with the type of good or bad Nepali dialect. The story “The Gurkha’s Daughter” inside the book with same title is not as simple as Kathmandu’s nine year olds’ bhara-kuti collections.

This is a great book in the market. To me it looks like a big experiment to study if a book, full of Nepali jargons with no explanation or glossary to explain, attracts Non-Gurkha English readers.