Himalayan Voices

While the natural splendor of Nepal has been celebrated in many books, very little of the substantial body of Nepali literature has appeared in English translation.Himalayan Voicesprovides admirers of Nepal and lovers of literature with their first glimpse of the vibrant literary scene in Nepal today. An introduction to the two most developed genres of modern Nepali literature--poetry and the short story--this work profiles eleven of Nepal's most distinguished poets and offers translations of more than eighty poems written from 1916 to 1986. Twenty of the most interesting and best-known examples of the Nepali short story are translated into English for the first time by Michael Hutt. All provide vivid descriptions of life in twentieth-century Nepal. Although the days when Nepali poets were regularly jailed for their writings have passed, until 1990 the strictures of various laws governing public security and partisan political activity still required writers and publishers to exercise a certain caution. In spite of these conditions, poetry in Nepal remained the most vital and innovative genre, in which sentiments and opinions on contemporary social and political issues were frequently expressed. While the Nepali short story adapted its present form only during the early 1930s, it has rapidly developed a surprisingly high degree of sophistication. These stories offer insights into the workings of Nepali society: into caste, agrarian relations, social change, the status of women, and so on. Such insights are more immediate than those offered by scholarly works and are conveyed by implication and assumption rather than analysis and exposition. This book should appeal not only to admirers of Nepal, but to all readers with an interest in non-Western literatures.Himalayan Voicesestablishes for the first time the existence of a sophisticated literary tradition in Nepal and the eastern Himalaya.

Michael James Hutt is a Lecturer in Nepali Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in the University of London

Preface	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xv
Note on Transliteration	p. xvii
Introduction	p. 1
The Poets of Nepal	p. 11
Nepali Poetry	p. 13
A Parrot in a Cage	p. 26
Himalaya	p. 28
Remembering Saraswali	p. 29
An Ode to Death	p. 30
Last Poem	p. 30
Man Is God Himself	p. 34
I Hate	p. 35
All-Pervading Poetry	p. 35
from Sight of the Incarnation	p. 36
Sleeping Porter	p. 44
from Muna and Madan	p. 45
Prayer on a Clear Morning in the Month of Magh	p. 51
Mad	p. 53
Like Nothing into Nothing	p. 56
A Suffering World	p. 59
No Smoke from the Chimneys	p. 61
My Reflection	p. 61
Untouchable	p. 61
Father Has Not Come Home	p. 62
My Son	p. 63
To the Poet Devkota	p. 64
Fragment from the Year '09	p. 68
Ants	p. 69
A Glimpse	p. 69
The Storm	p. 70
The End	p. 71
War	p. 71
The Practice of Sculpture	p. 71
A Mother's Dream	p. 75
Consolation	p. 76
A Mother's Pain	p. 78
A Change	p. 79
Who Are You?	p. 80
To--	p. 81
Remembering as I Go	p. 86
An Introduction to the Land	p. 87
I Love Your Daughter	p. 89
The Martyrs	p. 90
I Remember	p. 91
A Flower Amid the Mountain Rocks	p. 93
The Fiddle	p. 93
The Snow Peak's Blood-Red	p. 96
It's a Mineral, the Mind	p. 97
You Who Remember	p. 98
The Corpse of a Dream	p. 102
A Drunk Man's Speech to the Street After Midnight	p. 103
People Shopping at a Weekly Market	p. 106
Sweep Away	p. 113
To Gopalprasad Rimal's "To--"	p. 114
A Sick Lover's Letter to Her Soldier	p. 115
In the Arms of Death	p. 116
Always Always in My Dream	p. 122
Midday and the Cold Sleep	p. 123
I Think My Country's History Is a Lie	p. 124
A Blind Man on a Revolving Chair	p. 125
This Is a Land of Uproar and Rumor	p. 127
New York	p. 128
A Poem	p. 129
A Dove of Two Delicate White Hands: Your Greeting	p. 130
Cold Ashtray	p. 131
A Cruel Blow at Dawn	p. 131
Time, You Are Always the Winner	p. 133
I Am a Torn Poster	p. 135
Kathmandu	p. 137
Woman	p. 139
New Trends in Nepali Poetry	p. 141
A Leaf in a Storm	p. 143
A Wish	p. 144
This Life, What Life Is This?	p. 145
The Shadows of Superfluous Songs	p. 146
Where Is the Voice?	p. 147
Village and Town	p. 149
Children Going to School	p. 149
Before the Dawn	p. 149
April Wind	p. 150
Historical Matters	p. 151
Are You Quite Well, Oh Poet?	p. 152
To the Children	p. 153
None Returned from the Capital	p. 154
What's in the Bastard Hills?	p. 155
Thus a Nation Pretends to Live	p. 157
A Spell	p. 158
Headland	p. 158
Should I Earn My Daily Bread, or Should I Write a Poem?	p. 159
Selected Short Stories	p. 171
The Short Story in Nepali	p. 173
A Blaze in the Straw	p. 189
The Soldier	p. 197
To the Lowlands	p. 201
Will He Ever Return?	p. 207
Maujang Babusaheb's Coat	p. 214
The Murderer	p. 224
The Andhi Khola	p. 231
Sunglasses	p. 236
The Prisoner and the Dove	p. 240
A Splendid Buffalo	p. 244
The Half-closed Eyes of the Buddha and the Slowly Setting Sun	p. 253
Maina's Mother Is Just Like Us	p. 260
A Sweater for Brother-in-law	p. 266
It Depends upon Your Point of View	p. 271
A Husband	p. 278
The Telegram on the Table	p. 284
A Relationship	p. 286
The Fire	p. 290
A Small Fish Squats by the Dhobi Khola	p. 298
A Living Death	p. 304
Glossary	p. 311
Bibliography	p. 317
Index	p. 325
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

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