All, just sharing an article of Avi Subedi that is some what related to things discussed on this thread: http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?&nid=27374 Here is what he writes about role of Nepali literature in social awareness: "..To evoke a little historicism, in Nepal literature has played the pioneering role in creating ironically social awareness about many issues. Some major Nepali literary works have been metaliterary in nature, which means that the literary writers have addressed the social issues like opening the doors of Nepal to the world, opening universities, introducing linguistic subjects (like the Jharrobadis, whose contribution is important in the discourse about the sociology of language), and very importantly, the ideological questions. The early critical discourses and debates especially those written by the Bame and one or two non-bame writers like Krishnachandra Singh Pradhan, Taranath Sharma, Iswor Baral, Govinda Bhatta, Shankar Lamichhane, are very important ideological debates. They brought for the first time the Marxist epistemology in the social and educational discourses of Nepal. The tradition continues today but without the passion and missionary zeal of the erstwhile Marxist writers. But if you read at the metaliterary level the novels and essays of writers like Shankar Lamichhane, Parijat, Bhoopi Sherchan, Khagendra Sangraula, Narayan Dhakal, Govinda Bartaman and many others, you can see how literary epistemology of the Bames and others has directly addressed the sociological issues. We have always grappled with the problematics of translations in literature. In some cases we have given hegemonistic legitimacy to these texts. Sometimes our demarcating lines drawn between translation and original writing written under the influence of the literature of the west become fuzzy..." On a different topic, I noticed another interesting article by him about Nepali American youths on "Samaya Rekha" column of Nepal magaizne a few months ago. Here is the link: http://www.kantipuronline.com/Nepal/Archive/115th%20issue/samayarekha.htm Here is what one of the NA based NRNs had to say about this article: "Interesting article! I liked the begining and the development of feelings and ambivalence of emotions among diapora depicted in the article but the conclusion etc was quite fuzzy and rather disappointing. It would have been more meaningful if he had elaborated little more and give us the feeling as what is it that Nepali in Nepal feel about diasporas' concern. How is such concern useful for Nepal and how Nepali in Nepal can get connected ( if at all) to such feeling to spin it positively.Sadly, I did not find such nuances in his writing." -ViV