LONDON: Prajwal
Parajuly, a 27-year-old student at the University of Oxford from Gangtok,
Sikkim, India, created quite a furore in the publishing world of London this
week by being signed by the Steig Larson trilogy publisher Quercus Books in a
respectable five-figure pound advance. With the signing, Mr. Parajuly becomes
the youngest author at Quercus.
Already
touted as the next big thing in South Asian fiction by various publications of
the Indian sub-continent, Prajwal's The Gurkha's Daughter: Stories clinched him
the deal in a two-book signing, proving that talent -- irrespective of the
market for short-story collections -- doesn't go unrecognized. This will be the
first time a book on fiction has been written about Nepali-speaking people
without the contents restricting themselves to Nepal.
"Yes,
the stories are based all over -- Sikkim, Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Nepal, Bhutan,
New York," Prajwal said. "Nepali-speaking people don't live in Nepal
alone. Those in the Diaspora, too, have amazing stories that needed to be
written."
Prajwal
was represented by Susan Yearwood at the Susan Yearwood Literary Agency in
London.
The
Gurkha's Daughter: Stories encapsulates various aspects of lives of
Nepali-speaking people from troubled Gurkha pensioners to Nepali-speaking
Bhutanese refugees living in a state of statelessness for more than two
decades, and Diversity Visa winners struggling in New York to a retired
Nepali-speaking Indian woman contemplating a premarital affair, these tales
take us into fascinating worlds of a people who are oscillating from one
identity crisis to another.
Prajwal, the first Indian
to be selected into the University of Oxford's highly selective Creative
Writing Master's, worked as an advertising executive at "The Village
Voice" in New York before embarking on writing his book. He has been the
editor in chief of "detours: an explorer's guide to the midwest", a
national award-winning travel magazine based on Iowa, Illinois and Missouri, in
the United States.
The article was published in Sikkim Times http://sikkimnews.blogspot.com on 25th of September 2011
The article was published in Sikkim Times http://sikkimnews.blogspot.com on 25th of September 2011
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