Thapa explores disparate lives\n in contemporary Nepal, and weaves them into compact, jewel-bright\n narratives.'-Time Out Comprising perfectly crafted micro stories, and stories\n of conventional length, Tilled Earth off ers glimpses into the private dramas\n of people caught midlife: an elderly woodworker loses his way in a modern\n Kathmandu neighbourhood; a homesick expatriate nurses a hangover; a clerk at\n the Ministry of Home Affairs learns to play Solitaire on the computer; a\n young woman goes to Seattle as a student, and fi nds herself becoming an\n illegal alien; a retired secretary visits the Buddha's birthplace, Lumbini,\n only to find his deepest insecurities exposed.