Tilled earth : stories

In this, her first collection of short stories, Manjushree Thapa triumphs both as a confident innovator and a sensitive chronicler of small lives. Comprising perfectly crafted micro stories, and stories of conventional length, Tilled Earth offers glimpses into the private dramas of people caught midlife: an elderly woodworker loses his way in a modern Kathmandu neighbourhood; a homesick expatriate nurses a hangover; a clerk at the Ministry of Home Affairs learns to play Solitaire on the computer; a young woman goes to Seattle as a student, and finds herself becoming an illegal alien; and a retired secretary visits the Buddha's birthplace, Lumbini, only to find his deepest insecurities exposed.