KATHMANDU, Feb. 15 -- Born on July 2, 1946 in Lucknow, Maya Thakuri's first poems were hate letters to people who mistreated her. "They used to call me all sorts of names," she says referring to the real-life characters who shaped her childhood. Her philandering father left her mother who raised her and her two siblings in what she calls the "slums of Shillong". In 1974 she moved to permanently to Kathmandu and settled with her husband, Damodar Sharma.
Maya taught herself how to read and write, and is today a member of Nepal Academy and has published eight anthologies of short stories such as Priyambada (Sweet Spoken, 2013) and Aama! Jaanuhosh (Mother! Please Leave, 2008). Her stories have been translated into English, Bengali, Hindi, Tami...