About Book
It is the late 1990s, a few years into constitutional democracy in Nepal, and the government has collapsed. In Khaireni Tar, a small town on the Kathmandu-Pokhara highway, four separate lives come together during the campaign for fresh elections: Rishi Parajuli, a disillusioned communist who gives private tuitions in history; Giridhar Adhikari, an alcoholic who is the chairman of the Peoples Partys district committee; Om Gurung, a large-hearted former British Gurkha; and Binita Dahal, a reclusive young widow who runs a tea stall near the towns only bus stop. As the elections approach, and the crises in their lives mount, they must choose not only for their country, but also for their own individual futures.
About Author
Manjushree Thapa is one of South Asias best-known writers. She has written one other novel Seasons of Flight Tilled Earth: a collection of short stories, and four books of non-fiction: The Lives We Have Lost: Essays and Opinions on Nepal, Forget Kathmandu: An Elegy for Democracy (shortlisted for the Lettre Ulysses Award), A Boy from Siklis: The Life and Times of Chandra Gurung and Mustang Bhot in Fragments. She has also compiled and translated The Country Is Yours, a collection of stories and poems by forty-nine Nepali writers. Manjushree Thapa divides her time between Kathmandu and Toronto.