The Vanishing Act

by Prawin Adhikari

In the title story, a young, out-of-work Nepali man meets a circus clown and a giant in a park in Santa Rosa, California, and in their strange predicaments finds unexpected resonances of the lives of fellow Nepali immigrants. ‘Fortune’ tells the story of an old man who watches his village transform into a teeming basti of migrants brought there to dam the Marshyangdi River, and finds himself thrown into a struggle against oblivion. In ‘The Boy from Banauti’, the river joins for one afternoon the divergent fates of two young boys playing truant and inventing stories. And in ‘The Messiah’, a wounded man remembers a martyr and worries about their place in his nation's turbulent history

Set in the obscure village of Khaireni in central Nepal, in Kathmandu, and in California, the stories in The Vanishing Act carry a compelling sense of place and are illuminated by flashes of astonishing insight. This collection marks one of the most assured literary debuts from Nepal—and from the subcontinent—in recent years.

226 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Prawin Adhikari lives in Kathmandu where he teaches and writes fiction and screenplays. He has translated A Land of Our Own by Suvash Darnal, and Chapters, a collection of short stories by Amod Bhattarai, and has written a couple of feature films in Nepali. He is an assistant editor at La.Lit, the literary magazine.

Reviews

[K.C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first book of Prawin has some fascinating stories which often end either in a death or a separation. The feeling of loss and longing makes the heart ache long after one has read a story. He maps the world from Nepal to the USA, to find his stories. The descriptions of a rural Nepali village or an American city has been done so well. The narrator in a story once has a relationship with an elderly woman who changes often her face through plastic surgery. More so when she gets a divorce or ends a relationship. Her body is much younger than her age through exercise though. The writer explores well her psychology, who has a face which changes its appearance many times in a day, and that of her young lover, who tries to recognise the one he knows. Once he ends up wrongly chasing his former lover in a street, who turned out to be some one else.
It was about time he returned to his native country with all his confusion intact.
The book has stories with similar themes where something seem to elude or delude one. One feels as if one has caught hold of something solid out of a story at times but soon it seem to leak away from his hand. And the effect is longing and pain.
A wonderful debut book from a young writer.

[Ankita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nine short stories traversing the global domain, they explore various subjects: a young boy longing for a married lady to existential crises. Each story has its own enigma moving along the trajectory of a Maxwell-Boltzmann curve.
As a huge Murakami fan, I was in for a surprise when I read the last two stories- The Face of Carolynn Flint and The Condolence Picture. The former story is about a woman whose face has undergone innumerable changes that now it has a life of its own, transfiguring randomly. The latter is about the protagonist finding about the death of his friend, whom he had bullied, and connecting with his wife (got really weird in the middle, probably because of lesser details). As for every collection, this also had some weaklings.
His prose flows, is poetic and engulfs you. The character and the settings build up is really strong, vivid at times.

[Hem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally, managed to finish this. Usually, I read latter portion of a book faster than the beginning portion. The author seems to be a promising one- that's it!

[Sachi · Rating 3 out of 5]

My middle-class ass felt attacked in some parts. 'Fortune' is my favourite story from the lot.

[Jane Wilson-Howarth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this collection and although most of the stories cover difficult stuff - death, the destruction of fine traditional communities, corruption - there is a lot to take from the writing and ponder.
The Face of Carolynn Flint was especially absorbing and accomplished and I found the description of the life of the Nepali diaspora poignant.
The tales are diverse and entertaining and have much to recommend them.

[Bista Nirooj · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a good Short stories written by Prawin Adhikari. The Last three story really touched me more than the rest of them!

[Sangharsha · Rating 2 out of 5]

This could have been a beautiful collection, but it seems that the author tried to over-complicate things. I don't know, but I felt that "something" is missing. I liked 'The Condolence Picture', but the rest of them, not so much.