Nepal, June 27 -- Arun Gupto's 'Cracks in the Wind: Memoirs from Lumbini' weaves his personal experiences of growing up in Bahadurgunj, Kapilvastu, Nepal, with the stories of Rahamat, Baurahwa, Sukkhi, Salik, Khema, Venu, Bimala, Noori, Gopal, Kamli, Akhtar, and Sundari, among other characters inhabiting a border village suffused with multiple cultural traditions-Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist alike.

Some of these characters blend Hindi, Bengali, and Awadhi with Nepali in their speech, while others adopt the cultural practices of communities other than their own, thereby creating a hybrid space in which the very meaning of nation and nationalism becomes liminal and unstable. Viewed from this perspective, the book opens a new avenue for reim...