From the first Nepali author writing in English to be published in the West, Arresting God in Kathmandu brilliantly explores the nature of desire and spirituality in a changing society. With the assurance and unsentimental wisdom of a long-established writer, Upadhyay records the echoes of modernization throughout love and family. Here are husbands and wives bound together by arranged marriages but sometimes driven elsewhere by an intense desire for connection and transcendence. In a city where gods are omnipresent, where privacy is elusive and family defines identity, these men and women find themselves at the mercy of their desires but at the will of their society. Psychologically rich and astonishingly acute, Arresting God in Kathmandu introduces a potent new voice in contemporary fiction.

From the first Nepali author writing in English to be published in the West, "Arresting God in Kathmandu" brilliantly explores the nature of desire and spirituality in a changing society. "Wonderful stories full of irony, compassion and wit. Read him and you will learn about Nepal as well as yourself".--Josip Novakovich.

Samrat Upadhyay was born and raised in Kathmandu and came to the United States at age twenty-one. His work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories and The Best of the Fiction Workshops, and his first book, a collection of stories entitled ARRESTING GOD IN KATHMANDU, was published by Mariner Books in August 2001 and won a Whiting Award. He now lives with his wife near Cleveland, where he teaches and writes at Baldwin-Wallace College.