BookDragon Books for the Diverse Reader

Blame it on family, on the country-of-residence-at-the-moment, on the tumultuous politics of her motherland of Nepal, but certainly Manjushree Thapa has lived a life in flux, repeatedly adjusting to unpredictability. Born in Kathmandu, she moved as a toddler to Canada (young enough to acquire English as her first language), then back to Nepal through middle school. She went to high school in Washington, DC; college in Providence, Rhode Island; and graduate school in Seattle, Washington. For now, she again calls Canada home – albeit only part of the time – as she regularly commutes between Toronto and Kathmandu.

Thapa’s artistic life, too, has gone through substantial development: her initial interest as a teenager in visual art eventually led her to earn a photography degree at RISD, the Rhode Island School of Design. But when she returned to Nepal after graduation in 1989, Thapa found that her artistic pursuit limited her to “exclusive social circles,” and she wanted broader engagement. Her life-long love of literature led her gradually to her own writing, which she did in between working for various NGOs in rural Nepal – employment she considered more “socially useful.” She began with nonfiction, discovering her activist voice and capturing the injustices she witnessed as a part of her everyday life in Nepal. She turned to fiction to make sense of the tragedies from which she could not turn away. And then she headed stateside to the University of Washington for her MFA in 1996 to further hone her art – Fulbright Scholarship in hand – to study with such established mentors as Shawn Wong (American Knees, Homebase), David Shields (Reality Hunger: A Manifesto), and Maya Sonenberg (Voices from the Blue Hotel).

She’s been living a global writer’s life ever since. Over the last two decades, she’s published four nonfiction and three fiction titles. She’s also written countless pieces for newspapers and magazines worldwide including the usual high-profile suspects, The New York Times, London Review of Books, Hindustan Times, and so many more. In addition to her own words, she gives voice to other Nepali writers through literary translations – yes, she’s fluent in Nepali, as well as proficient in French and Hindi.

Thapa’s newer publications include a short story collection, Tilled Earth, and a novel, Seasons of Flight. Her latest nonfiction is a collection of essays on Nepal’s Maoist insurgency and peace process, The Lives We Have Lost. She’s also translated the works of 49 fellow Nepali writers in The Country Is Yours: Contemporary Nepali Literature.

Last month, Thapa curated “Nepal’s Many Voices” for the highly regarded international literature webzine, Words Without Borders. She was clearly the obvious choice as she is without parallel among Nepali women writers, even as she is both the leading voice among and outspoken champion of contemporary Nepali literature. As such, perhaps Thapa’s most recent high-profile literary endeavor was not on the page, but on celluloid, as she wrote the Nepal segment of the highly successful film Girl Rising, which debuted last year. The centerpiece for a global campaign of the same name focusing on girls’ education, Girl Rising the film features nine girls from around the world, whose stories were written by world-renowned writers with intimate links to their respective countries, with segments narrated by Hollywood royalty including Meryl Streep, Alicia Keys, Anne Hathaway, and Cate Blanchett. For Nepal, Thapa’s “girl rising” was Suma, who was sold into slavery as a young child, and survived; she sings hauntingly of her experiences with strength and inspiration.

I caught up with Thapa just as she was returning to Toronto via the Adirondacks – “the colors are changing; it’s spectacular!” – from Ithaca, New York where she spoke at Cornell University about her novel-in-progress, titled All of Us in Our Own Lives, and “Imagining Interdependence.” She’s awhirl with movement once again, heading back to Kathmandu for a month or more… here, there, everywhere.

With all the world-wandering you’ve done, your travel schedule never seems to hit a lull. How do you divide your time between Nepal and the West?
I moved to Toronto a few years ago but have kept my ties to Kathmandu as well. My parents are retired and live in Nepal. My partner is from Toronto. His family is Canadian.

I’ve always written about Nepal from Nepal. Some writers find it helpful to write about their country from elsewhere, from a distance. I’m not one of them; I find being there creatively inspiring. I get back to Nepal once or twice a year for long stretches, which is very important to me. And, of course, time with my family is a priority. I find my connection to Nepal – to keep that up, to not write from a great distance about Nepal – very important. I feel really rooted in Nepal, even though I spend half the year away. Nepal is where my heart is.

So is Nepal home?
Nepal is home. Toronto has been kind to me, but it’s not home yet; it’s where I’m living right now. I’ve had a very mixed upbringing – when I was acquiring language, we lived in Canada, then Nepal. I’m very much a hybrid, rooted in Nepal but influenced by international displacement. That was a painful way to grow up, but now I’m really glad to have had exposure to both east and west. What is interesting now is that so many Nepalis have migrated west. The conversations I have with my compatriots in Toronto could easily be taking place in Kathmandu. Nepal is one of those countries where everyone is traveling and living elsewhere for a while. Nepali identity is very transnational right now.

Since your life directly affects your writing, could you talk a bit about your process, especially working in multiple genres?
I find I’m doing more and more research now. When I first started writing, I did as most writers are told: write about what you know. But that proved limited for me, because I’m interested in so many things that I don’t know much about. So I find myself doing more research for my fiction.

As for the process, it varies with different genres. If I’m writing a novel, I’ll take about four to six months to produce a first draft, and then another three years – if I’m lucky – to revise and turn it into a book. The process can also take four or five years if I’m working on other things at the same time.

Short stories are more spontaneous for me. I really miss writing them; I haven’t written any since Tilled Earth. My next book – after the current novel I’m working on – will be a collection of short stories. Sometimes, research is still involved when I write stories. For example, in Tilled Earth I have a story called “The Buddha in the Earth-Touching Posture,” which takes place in Lumbini, in southern Nepal, where the Buddha is believed to have been born. The area is like a Buddhist theme park, filled with international monasteries – and it’s in the middle of Nepal’s Muslim heartland. I researched that story in order to write it. In general, though, my stories tend to be more spontaneous, written from what I’ve observed and lived through.

Essays – nonfiction – are easier than fiction for me. The process is more straightforward; I know exactly what I’m writing about, I do the necessary research and interviews, then pull everything together. There isn’t the same level of imaginative work involved. For me, fiction is the deeper, more internal, harder work. Since every novel takes three or four years, it’s a really involved process. Nonfiction is a lighter experience.

And yet your nonfiction deals with extremely difficult, often violent, experiences in Nepal that you’ve had to face your entire life. When and how did writing become a way for you to process what you experienced?

Nepal’s first democracy movement took place in 1950, but democracy lasted only a decade. The second democracy movement took place in 1990. I had just come back to Nepal after college; I was 21. I was at the start of my professional life. Suddenly Nepal, which had had an absolute monarchy, had a parliamentary democracy. It was an exciting time to live through, and this was why I decided to live there after college. The country was transforming so fast. It was very compelling to witness the changes.

But before long, things were going badly. The Maoist insurgency began in 1996. I was in my mid-20s then. At first I didn’t know what the insurgency was about. I knew about the Communist movement in Nepal, but didn’t realize how militant it could be. Then, June 1, 2001, after Nepal’s crown prince killed nine members of the royal family and himself, the army got involved in the counterinsurgency, and that’s what politicized me. With the Army’s involvement, the war escalated and human rights atrocities skyrocketed.

A few years later, I got a small grant to write reportage on the war. I went to Suma [character in Girl Rising]’s area to do so. The Maoists had a very strong presence there, as well as the army. A lot of people from there were killed and disappeared. The army thought that the Tharu [Suma and her family are Tharu] were blanket Maoist supporters. One of the stories I reported there was about a 12-year-old girl, Rupa Tharu [no relation to Suma], who the army killed; they thought she was a Maoist, so they came to her village, took her out of her home, and shot her point blank. I met her grieving parents. It was a very dirty war on both sides; but that killing has been impossible for me to get over. [… click here for more]

Author interview: Feature: “An Interview with Manjushree Thapa,” Bookslut.com, October 2014

Readers: Adult