Hindi journal Samkaleen Teesari Duniya’s latest issue offers a detailed view of Nepali literature

Well-known Nepali journalist Naresh Gyawali is the editor of this special issue

It’s a sad reality that most educated Indians know much more about the history and culture of the United States, Latin America and Europe than of their immediate neighbours like China, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan or Sri Lanka. We are much more familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda, T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Orhan Pamuk and many other such writers than with the works of those who have been active in our own neighbourhood.

To fill this gap, Samkaleen Teesari Duniya (Contemporary Third World) recently came out with a special issue on the progressive literature in the Nepali language and this initiative will go a long way to familiarise Hindi readers with the literature of protest written in Nepali. The journal, founded in the early 1980s by its chief editor Anand Swaroop Verma, has been focusing primarily on resistance movements in Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Arab world.

The issue offers a panoramic view of the progressive literature in Nepali with representative poems, short stories, one-act plays, essays, interviews and reminiscences. One can also get acquainted with discussions on the relationship between Dalit aesthetics and socialist aesthetics, and also of the problematic concept of ‘nation’. It also has an annexure that places the chronology of all the major historical events from 1846 up to June 2017 on view for those readers who may not be familiar with the Nepalese history. Well-known Nepali journalist Naresh Gyawali is the editor of this special issue.