Sushma Joshi
Encyclopedia
Sushma Joshi is a Nepali writer and filmmaker based in Kathmandu, Nepal
.
End of the World, her book of short stories, was long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award
in 2009. Art Matters, a book of essays about contemporary art, was supported by the Alliance Francaise De Katmandou.
Joshi contributed a widely read Sunday column The Global and the Local to Nepal's leading English daily newspaper The Kathmandu Post
from 2008-2011. Inspired by Nepali history and contemporary politics, her non-fiction and reportage deal with issues of social change, environment and gender.
Sound of Silence (1997) her first documentary, was screened at the New Asian Currents at the Yamagata Documentary Film Festival. Water (2000) was screened on the Q and A with Riz Khan on CNN International
, and the UN World Water Forum in Kyoto. The Escape (2006), a short about a teacher targeted by rebels, was accepted to the Berlinale Talent Campus. Her films have also screened at Flickerfest Film Festival, Sydney; Vancouver Nepali Film Festival; Himalayan Film Festival in London and others.
, in the district of Darjeeling. These formative years in a school started by British missionaries instilled a passion for literature and writing. She finished her education at Mahendra Bhawan and Siddhartha Vanasthali High School in Kathmandu.
Joshi graduated from Brown University
in 1996. At Brown, she studied liberal arts and took workshops in fiction, autobiography, and poetry. She also took classes in documentary production with artist Tony Cokes. From 1999-2002, she was in graduate school at the New School of Social Research in New York, where she received an MA in anthropology
. During the summers, she attended The Breadloaf School of English at Middlebury College
, Vermont, and received another MA in English Literature
in 2005. At Bread Loaf, she studied playwriting with Obie prize winning playwright Dare Clubb, as well as theatre directing and acting with Alan and Carol MacVey.
Sushma Joshi received a waiter fellowship to attend the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference
in 2000. In 2005, she received a research and writing fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation. She was awarded a residency at the Bellagio Center, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, in Bellagio, Italy, in 2006. Joshi was a featured writer at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in 2009. In 2011, she was an Asia fellow and traveled to Thailand and Burma to do research on a book about Nepali migrants, with support from the Asian Scholarship Foundation.
Joshi was a jury member of the Indigenous Film Festival in Nepal in 2009. She was also a member of a three-judge panel for the film competition on global warming sponsored by British Council/DFID in Kathmandu in 2010.
Joshi's multimedia installation titled "Jumla: A cyberphoto installation" was accepted to the Eighth International Symposium of Electronic Art (ISEA) at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1997.
After the Floods, Munyori Literature Journal July/August 2009
The Colonel Gets a Visitor, Kyoto Journal January 2009
Betrayal Cha: An Asian Literary Journal
May 2008
Cheese, East of the Web 2005
Waiting for Rain, SAMAR Magazine Issue 13, Winter/Spring 2000
di Sushma Joshi, Buran, Il Cibo Febraio 2008 (Italian translation)
Pho Mai, Sushma Joshi, Viet Bao 2005 (Vietnamese translation)
tận thế (truyện ngắn), Sushma Joshi, nguyenhuuhuan (Vietnamese translation)
Pole” justice in Nepal, Eureka Street June 12, 2006
War-Torn Shangri-La, Ms Magazine Summer 2006
Short Takes: News from all over, Utne Reader 09/06
Women’s Day in Nepal, Hinduism Today September/October 2000
De smaak van vroeger, Ode Magazine 27 Juli/augustus 1999 issue
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
.
End of the World, her book of short stories, was long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award
Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award
The Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award is a literary award for short story collections. At 35,000 euro for the best book of short stories it claims to be the world's largest prize for a short story collection. Each year, roughly sixty books are longlisted, with either four or six books...
in 2009. Art Matters, a book of essays about contemporary art, was supported by the Alliance Francaise De Katmandou.
Joshi contributed a widely read Sunday column The Global and the Local to Nepal's leading English daily newspaper The Kathmandu Post
The Kathmandu Post
The Kathmandu Post is a major daily newspaper published in Nepal. Centred in the capital Kathmandu, it is one of the largest English-language newspapers in the country. The Kathmandu Post is independently owned, and is published by Kantipur Publications, the owners of Nepal's largest selling...
from 2008-2011. Inspired by Nepali history and contemporary politics, her non-fiction and reportage deal with issues of social change, environment and gender.
Sound of Silence (1997) her first documentary, was screened at the New Asian Currents at the Yamagata Documentary Film Festival. Water (2000) was screened on the Q and A with Riz Khan on CNN International
CNN International
CNN International is an international English language television network that carries news, current affairs, politics, opinions, and business programming worldwide. CNN is one of the world's largest news organizations. It is owned by Time Warner, and is affiliated with CNN, which is mainly...
, and the UN World Water Forum in Kyoto. The Escape (2006), a short about a teacher targeted by rebels, was accepted to the Berlinale Talent Campus. Her films have also screened at Flickerfest Film Festival, Sydney; Vancouver Nepali Film Festival; Himalayan Film Festival in London and others.
Education and Influences
Joshi was born and grew up in Kathmandu. From age 8 to 12, she studied in Dowhill School, KurseongKurseong
Kurseong is a hill station situated in Darjeeling district of West Bengal, India.Located at an altitude of 1458 metres , Kurseong is just 30 km from Darjeeling...
, in the district of Darjeeling. These formative years in a school started by British missionaries instilled a passion for literature and writing. She finished her education at Mahendra Bhawan and Siddhartha Vanasthali High School in Kathmandu.
Joshi graduated from Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
in 1996. At Brown, she studied liberal arts and took workshops in fiction, autobiography, and poetry. She also took classes in documentary production with artist Tony Cokes. From 1999-2002, she was in graduate school at the New School of Social Research in New York, where she received an MA in anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
. During the summers, she attended The Breadloaf School of English at Middlebury College
Middlebury College
Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college located in Middlebury, Vermont, USA. Founded in 1800, it is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the United States. Drawing 2,400 undergraduates from all 50 United States and over 70 countries, Middlebury offers 44 majors in the arts,...
, Vermont, and received another MA in English Literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
in 2005. At Bread Loaf, she studied playwriting with Obie prize winning playwright Dare Clubb, as well as theatre directing and acting with Alan and Carol MacVey.
Sushma Joshi received a waiter fellowship to attend the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference
Bread Loaf Writers' Conference
The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is a writers' conference held every summer at the Bread Loaf Inn, near Bread Loaf Mountain, east of Middlebury, Vermont...
in 2000. In 2005, she received a research and writing fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation. She was awarded a residency at the Bellagio Center, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, in Bellagio, Italy, in 2006. Joshi was a featured writer at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in 2009. In 2011, she was an Asia fellow and traveled to Thailand and Burma to do research on a book about Nepali migrants, with support from the Asian Scholarship Foundation.
Joshi was a jury member of the Indigenous Film Festival in Nepal in 2009. She was also a member of a three-judge panel for the film competition on global warming sponsored by British Council/DFID in Kathmandu in 2010.
Art
In 2004, Joshi had a solo exhibit of her paintings at Gallery Nine. The exhibit featured 26 paintings depicting figurative paintings about the state of Nepal during the civil conflict.Joshi's multimedia installation titled "Jumla: A cyberphoto installation" was accepted to the Eighth International Symposium of Electronic Art (ISEA) at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1997.
Selected published articles and stories
The Global and the Local 1999-2011After the Floods, Munyori Literature Journal July/August 2009
The Colonel Gets a Visitor, Kyoto Journal January 2009
Betrayal Cha: An Asian Literary Journal
Cha: An Asian Literary Journal
Cha: An Asian Literary Journal is the first Hong Kong-based online English literary journal. It was founded in 2007, a decade after the handover, by and . The editorial team also includes Reviews Editor ....
May 2008
Cheese, East of the Web 2005
Waiting for Rain, SAMAR Magazine Issue 13, Winter/Spring 2000
di Sushma Joshi, Buran, Il Cibo Febraio 2008 (Italian translation)
Pho Mai, Sushma Joshi, Viet Bao 2005 (Vietnamese translation)
tận thế (truyện ngắn), Sushma Joshi, nguyenhuuhuan (Vietnamese translation)
Pole” justice in Nepal, Eureka Street June 12, 2006
War-Torn Shangri-La, Ms Magazine Summer 2006
Short Takes: News from all over, Utne Reader 09/06
Women’s Day in Nepal, Hinduism Today September/October 2000
De smaak van vroeger, Ode Magazine 27 Juli/augustus 1999 issue
External links
- Review of "The End of the World" by Sumati Sivasiamphai, Guru Magazine, Friday Supplement of the Bangkok Post 08/2011
- An Affair to Remember, Janet O'Neefe, Garuda Indonesia 11/2009
- Carnival Lights up Ubud Fest, Jakarta Post 10/11/2009
- Words Amidst Beauty, Lee Su kim, Malaysia Star 10/18/2009
- Filling the Gap, Sushma Joshi starts a new beginning for English medium literature in Nepal, WAVE Magazine July 2009
- Book Review: And, Of The Word, Deepak Adhikari, Nepal Monitor 2009
See also
- Nepali literatureNepali literatureNepali Literature refers to the literature written in the Nepali language and should not be confused with Nepalese literature; a work that is classified as Nepali literature does not necessarily have to be written by a Nepalese/ written in Nepal. Much of today's Nepali literature is widely written...