Coffee at Anu books with writer Prajwal Parajuly: Celebrating ‘Chitralekha ko Chaurasi’ the Nepali edition of internationally acclaimed ‘Land Where I Flee.(Nepali translation by Bibhu Luintel)
Community of Practice member Shreeya Singh about the event: “The Author meet up/ book signing went very well at Anu books. Amir dai is such a great mediator. Mr. Parajuli answered some lovely questions about voicing different characters in a sensitive manner (not over correctly/ limiting who we can give voices/ portray in our stories), exercising liberty as an author, difference between understanding a character’s experience vs. generalizing our understanding of the community’s experience, filling the gap of portraying women and LGBT+ members in a non gender conforming way.
Also, he spoke about how he revised his writing of a transgender character through his research and effort by spending time with his transgender friend in his new book.
Also, the author talked about how Nepali diaspora has faced adversity and state violence in different parts of the world. He began writing stories about the Bhutanese refugee crisis from friction lense (noticing a gap) and injustice in the British Gorkha army as a uniquely positioned person from Sikim.
I loved the conversations, and thought it was very relevant to conflict sensitive media production. Conflicts while writing stories and how we give voices our characters.