We are happy to reveal our shortlist for the 2021 edition of Writing Nepal: A Short Story Contest. We were overwhelmed by the number of submissions we received this year, and have spent the past few months reading your stories. Here, in alphabetical order, is our final shortlist for 2021, selected by author Samrat Upadhyay:
‘Footsteps from far away’ by Alexander Sunny Jaiswal
‘One day in the life of Comrade Aakrosh’ by Surath Giri
‘The man on the bus’ by Pooja Poudel
‘The story of Cheppu’ by Sadish
‘The thin wall’ by Ritu Rajbanshi
‘Tick-tick-tick’ by Alfa M. Shakya
‘Vaccine’ by Bijay Prakash Upadhyaya
Congratulations to the shortlisted writers! We’ll be contacting you individually soon. We’d like to thank all the writers who took the time to share their stories with us; each story was a special pleasure to read. Our judge Samrat Upadhyay would also like to acknowledge the following submissions that did not make the shortlist. We hope you will continue writing!
‘Harmonium Kanchi’ by Shuvangi Khadka
‘Piri’ by Neha Singh
‘The country that never existed’ by Nirvana Bhandary
‘The cursed grandson’ by Sneha Bhatta
‘Sani’ by Shreeya Tamang
‘Tinnitus’ by Rupesh Bhattarai
‘To Jump off a parapet’ by S. J. Shakya
We hope to see you at our award ceremony at 2:00 pm, Tuesday, December 28 at the Kathmandu Guest House gardens in Thamel, Kathmandu. The winners will be announced by Samrat Upadhyay, followed by a short reading. Details on the award ceremony can be viewed here.