The Constituent Assembly of Nepal, in its very first meeting, abolished the monarchy in May 2008. After that watershed event, however, the way forward has been stalled by vexing questions. How is power in such a fractious polity to be shared? Which form of governance is best suited to the country: republicanism? federalism? How are the excesses of the decade-long civil war to be reckoned? How is the People’s Liberation Army to be integrated with the Nepal Army? To what extent should neighbours be allowed to interfere in the internal politics of the nation? And why is it that the Constituent Assembly, years after it was elected, cannot draft a Constitution that is acceptable to all? In The Lives We Have Lost, Manjushree Thapa asks these vital questions, and many others. And, in seeking answers, finds the nation still muddling its way from crisis to crisis, in desperate search of a centre that will hold.This revised and updated edition of The Lives We Have Lost brings the account of contemporary Nepal narrated in Forget Kathmandu up to the present day. A clear-sighted, relevant chronicle, it spans many important events: the Maobadis’s People’s War, King Gyanendra’s coup, his overthrow, the launch of a peace process and the—glacially slow—process of writing a new Constitution and re-fashioning the nation. Manjushree Thapa is a very well-known as one of South Asia’s most sensitive, sophisticated and politically engaged authors. Manjushree Thapa’s body of work, fiction and non-fiction, has created its own, significant, space in South Asian literature. The Lives We Have Lost, and other books in Manjushree Thapa’s backlist, has been attractively repackaged and refreshed by Aleph Book Company. A brand-new novel by the author, All of Us in Our Own Lives, is forthcoming from Aleph Book Company.
