Samrat Upadhyay is a Nepalese writer who writes in English. Upadhyay is a professor of creative writing as well as Director of Graduate Studies at Indiana University. He is the first Nepali-born fiction writer writing in English to be published in the West. Indiana University Graduate Creative Writing Program - Samrat Upadhyay He was born and raised in Kathmandu, Nepal, and came to the United States at the age of twenty-one. He lives with his wife and daughter in Bloomington, Indiana (United States).
He was an English professor at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio before moving to Indiana in 2003.
His books specially portray the current situation in Nepal, which Upadhyay views largely though the lens of contemporary American realist fiction. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Upadhyay is "like a Buddhist Chekhov." Like a Buddhist Chekhov / Nepali writer's stories of life and love speak to common truths
First published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 2001, Arresting God in Kathmandu is Upadhyay's first book. It is a collection of nine short stories. With Arresting God in Kathmandu Upadhyay won the Whiting Writers' Award.
The stories1. The Good Shopkeeper2. The Cooking Poet3. Deepak Misra's Secretary4. The Limping Bride5. During the Festival6. The Room Next Door7. The Man with Long Hair8. This World9. A Great Man's House
The Guru of Love (2003)
First published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 2003, The Guru of Love is Upadhyay's second book and first full-length novel. The Guru of Love was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year 2003.
It is not the basis for the 2008 Mike Myers film The Love Guru.
The Royal Ghosts (2006)
First published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 2006, The Royal Ghosts is Upadhyay's third book, a collection of nine short stories.
The stories1. A Refugee2. The Wedding Hero3. The Third Stage4. Supreme Pronouncements5. The Weight of a Gun6. Chintamani's Women7. Father, Daughter8. A Servant in the City9. The Royal Ghosts