Kathmandu:

After finding good success, journalist Narayan Wagle’s Nepali novel Palpasa Café’s English version was also launched at an informal gathering at ‘r-sala’ hall, Nepa-laya, Kalikasthan on January 15.

Everything about the programme was interesting — be it the insight into the novel and often-humorous words of Kunda Dixit, who gave an introduction to the book, or the events of his life that Wagle innocently shared, or the short-and-sweet way in which the programme was conducted.

“I knew Wagle when his hair was still black,” began Dixit humorously. He highlighted how the negative effect of war was not only dead people but also its aftermath and how it brutalised people. “Narayan chose to show the effects of war through a fiction,” he said. The book has been translated by journalist Bikash Sangraula.

“I had a dream of writing novels and encounter with real-life characters gave a creative pressure to me to write. I wrote a fiction finally and poured my anger and frustration with the country’s politics,” Wagle shared.

This is Nepa-laya’s fourth publication and the Nepali version had also won a Madan Pukarskar. “This book in Nepali was our first and its English translation is our latest,” shared Kiran Shrestha, team leader, Nepa-laya.