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The Gurkha's Daughter: Stories (2012)

by Prajwal Parajuly(Favorite Author)

3.7 of 5 Votes: 5

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Quercus

review 1: A really lovely collection of short stories about Nepalese people set in and around Northern India and Nepal. Prajwal Parajuly has the capacity to create characters of great resilience and verve and he frames vivid little worlds in each tale.Among my favourites were, 'No Land is Her Land' about a displaced and disjointed family attempting to create a 'picture-perfect' family for their US visas, the title story 'The Gurkha's Daughter' about two young friends who play-act the conversations and attitudes of their fathers, and 'The Immigrants' - the very moving story of a successful young Nepalese man living in New York who arranges for a young Nepalese woman of a lower social status to come and cook for him in exchange for English lessons, not realising that she has something... more to teach him.
review 2: Prajwal Parajuly made it to news when Quercus signed him on for a two-book deal. The hype around him was overwhelming, and why not, he was after all a student of the Oxford Creative writing course. Naturally, there was immense pressure when he started working on his first book, ‘The Gurkha's Daughter’, a collection of short stories. But, the build-up wasn't in vain and once you have read the first story the verdict is clear – Prajwal is here to stay and will definitely be read more.‘The Gurkha's Daughter’ comprises eight stories chronicling the life and issues of Nepali speaking people around the world. Prajwal's geographical canvas is spread across Nepal, Sikkim, Darjeeling, Bhutan and USA. One of the key challenges for Indian writers living or studying abroad is to write about their roots and narrate their story in all honesty without trying to romanticize the text. In the past decade, many South Asian writers have successfully shown this ability and one of the finest storytelling has come from Jhumpa Lahiri. Prajwal himself considers Jhumpa as a fine story teller, especially of the shorter format. The Gurkha's Daughter is a deserving heir apparent to the Jhumpa's ‘Interpreter of Maladies’. Each story is earthy and revolves around human emotions, which is central to the conflicts arising out of various political and social issues that Nepali or for that matter any community faces. The narrative is simple and becomes a little lazy in a few stories. The themes are varied. Political and social issues of displacement, identity, inequality and governance are interwoven with a human touch in each story. Prior to writing his stories Prajwal travelled around the world meeting Nepali and Nepali speaking people everywhere. This exercise resulted in an in-depth human understanding of the core issues and hence, bloomed into a wonderful read. Pick it up. This will surely be a good book to have in your library.My pick has to be ‘Let Sleeping Dog's Lie’ from the lot! less

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