Novel
There's a Carnival Today
आज रमिता छ
Indra Bahadur Rai · 1964
Synopsis
Darjeeling, in the fifties, shortly after Indian independence. Sita Shrestha, who has come from Dhankuta to study, falls in love with Janak Man Yonzan, back from Calcutta, and their story serves as the thread of the narrative. Around them pass a Tibetan restaurateur, a creditor and his Bengali friend, and two ways of doing politics: Janak's, an idealist nourished on Gandhi, and Bhudev's, more brutal. Unrest rises in the tea plantations, where the inhabitants are preparing a demonstration against the treatment of the workers.
Context
The novel appeared in 1964, according to a Kathmandu daily. Its author wanted a narrative with no apparent order, because, he said, life moved forward without organising itself, and the city speaks its own language in it, a Nepali mixed with Hindi and Bengali, according to the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative. Manjushree Thapa, who had read it in 2000, waited fifteen years before translating it; her English version, There's a Carnival Today, appeared from Speaking Tiger in 2017, the last year of the author's life.
Who it is for
In Nepali, with no French translation; the 2017 English version makes it possible to read it. It is better to know that Darjeeling is an Indian town where Nepali is spoken.
Prizes and reception
The Himalayan Times sees it as its author's flagship work, and The Kathmandu Post ranks it among his critically acclaimed books.
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