Manjushree Thapa
@manjushreethapa
Writer & literary translator from Kathmandu, now based in Toronto. Always, always working on a new book. www.manjushreethapa.com
My favourite Nepali artist, Ashmina Ranjit, has new work up in Delhi. This is from her Facebook post—for those of you who can get to Bikaner House to catch the exhibit “Mool.”
Yes, I was still trying to finish the Wilson translation at the theatre for Nolan’s interpretation of The Odyssey. I got interrupted by the movie at Book 22 (titled Bloodshed). My one-word review of the movie? Fun! But the book’s a heck of a lot more fun. 📕 🎥
All about books! With my wonderful literary agent Carolyn Forde at Transatlantic Agency in trendy west Toronto. (I always forget how incredibly cool west Toronto is).
The map is from Globe and Mail. My photo is from Singing Sands in the Bruce Peninsula today, which is hundreds of miles away from the closest fires.
This book is for all of us who have long argued that Nepal’s art and literature is far, far more diverse and interesting than its established canons would have you think. The Other Nepal edited by Puspa Damai.
Not us glued to our phones during the Mariposa folk festival. 🎶 ⚽️ 🎶
So long and thanks for all the fish, Newfoundland. We saw 90,000 gannets (and kittiwakes and murres) at Cape St. Mary’s, some great art at The Rooms in St. John’s, and humpback whales at the easternmost point in Canada, Cape Spears, and are home for Canada Day.
A Fogo Island statue of the extinct Great Auk by artist Todd McGrain, which is facing its counterpart statue in Iceland. And some happily thriving puffins off Little Fogo Island. Thanks for the sunshine, Newfoundland. ☀️
Has everyone read Sheila North’s The Right to Be Cold? It’s really wonderful and important, I recommend it. Icebergs in Newfoundland. 🩵
This is a wonderful book—recommended for everyone who likes birds and is scared of dinosaurs. 🦕 🦅
Baby’s first iceberg(s)! Off the Atlantic coast in St Anthony on a 6c summer solstice day. Happy summer to those who celebrate! 🌞
We walked out in the lashing rain on a 6c Newfoundland summer’s day to check out some Thrombolites and have lived to tell the tale. 🌧️
Congratulations to us for finding the only place in Port au Choix that’s airing the World Cup Canada-Qatar game. ⚽️
I’ve been waiting for years to take on my next big project: Parijat’s Toribari Bata ra Sapanaharu. My summer of translation begins now.
We had a neighbourhood yard sale today and I couldn’t help but notice that our neighbour couldn’t even give these away for free. 🇨🇦 💔 🇺🇸
Summer reading! I’m going down a Neolithic rabbit hole, and will see you on the other side. (Happy to receive reading suggestions; send them along.)
Dengbejan: Kurdish myths and folk tales recited to keep old stories alive. A lovely way to end our tour of eastern Türkiye in Diyarbakir. journals.openedition.org/ejts/4055?la...
“Pre-pottery Neolithic” is my new favourite period of history, when people didn’t yet farm but had language/stories, and gathered in community spaces to make art and get up to who-knows-what. (Check out those stone plates!) In Karahan Tepe and Gobeklitepe, eastern Türkiye.
I discovered Annalee Newitz’s books after reading Four Lost Cities, and have been listening to this excellent, and actually very helpful and hopeful book about the survival of humankind while touring ancient Mesopotamian archaeological sites. Strongly recommended!
Highlight of the day for me: having a gigantic egg in front of a Chaldean church in Mardin, Turkey, explained by the church’s guide as the egg of Shahmaran. Whereupon we later had to look up who Shahmaran is: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahmaran
Mardin’s football team defeated Diyarbakır’s and went up in the league, and the entire town lit up fireworks.