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