Narayan Wagle’s new book ‘Koreana Coffee Guff’ is hitting bookstores soon. Wagle’s first book ‘Palpasa Café’ is considered a turning point in Nepal’s publication industry. ‘Palpasa Café’ not only inspired many new writers, but it also redefined the publication market. Since its release in 2005, ‘Palpasa Café’ has now gone through 30th reprints, making it probably the largest selling ‘non-text book’ novel in Nepali language as per a press statement released by Nepalaya. Several writers have acknowledged the contribution of Narayan Wagle and his first fiction ‘Palpasa’ Café to the publication industry of Nepal.
“15 years after its release, ‘Palpasa Café’ still sells at an average of 3,000 copies a year, making it among the most valuable titles in our back catalog,” said Kiran Krishna Shrestha of Publication Nepalaya.
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Author Narayan Wagle is a journalist by profession. Literature is his passion. The upcoming book ‘KoreanaCoffee Guff’ is his third literary work in the book form. His first book ‘Palpasa Café’ won him many accolades including the most prized literary award of Nepal, the Madan Puraskar.
His second novel was ‘Mayur Times’. However, the literary identity of this acclaimed journalist was established through his weekly creative Saturday supplement column published in Kantipur. Titled Coffee Guff it was published on a weekly Kantipur supplement, Koseli. Koreana also subtitled as Coffee Guff, is his first book written in his signature ‘coffee guff’ style. Though this is Wagle’s third book, Koreana is his first non-fiction.
Coffee Guff is neither fiction nor purely non-fiction. It rather fits into a genre of creative non-fiction. The press statement quoted the author Narayan Wagle saying, “This is a literary work. It does not matter whether it is a fiction or non-fiction. The trend of categorizing write-ups is changing in world literature. We have even read books which are now categorized as non-fiction novels. Therefore, ‘Koreana’ could also be read like a novel by readers. I leave it up to them to choose a category they think it suits best.”
Koreana is being released during the second week of February. The hardbound of the book is priced at Rs 495.
