Palpasa Café - A debut novel by Narayan Wagle

The Writer

Editor of Kantipur daily, Narayan Wagle is also known as the writer of an extremely popular  Saturday Column – Coffee Guff.
Coffee guff is a typical Narayan Wagle column where - issues, travels, and encounters that do not get the news space in his paper, are presented in an interesting manner.
Fact coupled with a tint fiction and some fantasy is how this column is presented, and this is what Narayan does very well.

The Book

Written in the Coffee Guff format - Palpasa Café is also the first novel from him.
The language used is very simple and colloquial.
Story telling is interesting.
The novel has been successful in absorbing the readers into the book. It does not take much time when the readers start finding the characters in the book very close to themselves and their everyday life.

This 245-pages novel has portrayed the protagonists of the novel, on a canvas of time, and questioned them. Questions, related to contemporary Nepal.

The main character of the novel is an artist who has been made to disappear. The story resolves around the lives of Drishya the artist and Palpasa his lover.  Palpasa has returned from America. Drisya and Palpasa have contrasting lives with differing views, and levels of consciousness. The state of conflict in the country becomes an obstacle for their togetherness and their efforts to connect. The backdrop of the novel is based on the effects of conflict, and the environment of confusion of people’s vision, consciousness and reality. 

Entry of Siddhartha, Drishya’s college mate – takes Drishya and the readers close to current conflicts.  

The Publisher

Alike Narayan’s , Palpasa Café is also the first book published by nepa-laya. 

Nepa-laya has been working with promoting various genres of creative art which mainly included music and non-fiction films. Nepa~laya has now expanded it’s operation to publishing and promoting Novels. 

An attempt has been made to maintain the printing and packaging of the book at a high level.

The book has been priced at Rs. 250 for the soft cover and Rs.450 for the Hardcover.

Pre-launch Function

A formal announcement on Narayan Wagle’s awaited novel – Palpasa Café was made at a Pre-launch Session held at Yalamaya Kendra on 16th of July 2005.

The book will be released and be available at bookstores within a month.