Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu:

Nepa~laya, which has been actively promoting various genres of creative art, expanding its operation to printing and publishing novels organised a pre-launch of Narayan Wagle’s Palpasa Café on July16. Palpasa Café is the first novel by the author who is also the editor of the ‘Kantipur’ vernacular daily. The book will be released and be available at bookstores within a month. The novel is written in a “coffee guff” format, which is simple and colloquial. Coffee Guff is a Narayan Wagle column where issues, travels, and encounters that do not get news space in his paper are presented in an interesting manner. The 245-page novel portrays

characters that bear close resemblance to people caught in the present political conflict. The main protagonist Drishya is an artist who’s never so conspicuous throughout the novel though.

However, the story revolves around the lives of the artist and his ladylove Palpasa. The narrative is presented through the perspective of these two characters that have two contrasting views and varying levels of consciousness. The novel is set in the backdrop where chaos reigns. The state of conflict in the country becomes an obstacle for their togetherness and their efforts to connect. Enter Siddhartha and more revelations happen.