As US Bans Books, Nepali Youth Head to Library

Mahima Poddar, 24, is a moderator of the Kathmandu chapter of the Sanskaari Girls Book Club, an international readers’ alliance that focuses on works by feminist writers. She facilitates monthly book conversations that candidly address issues young people might otherwise never mention out loud. In her view, these discussions represent “a marker of where we are headed.”

Nepal is a traditionally patriarchal society. Poddar says that in her mother’s generation, women were commodified.

“They were seen as reproductive machines,” she told OZY. “Their problems, like fertility, loveless marriages, or their traumatic experiences, were never discussed.” While the women of her mother’s generation did not have spaces to discuss their experiences, said Poddar, “we have them now.”

Perhaps surprisingly, those spaces include libraries, which are helping to transform swaths of Nepali society. This may shed light on just why books and libraries have become so controversial in the United States.

In the year since it has been open, the library has become a space for workshops on topics ranging from sexuality to herbology to anarchism. She said that Matangi is intended to be a place that is inviting to all types of people, especially those who don’t find support at home or don’t have a place they can sit down to read.

This past year, the library held a workshop inviting participants to reflect on their bodies and sexual experiences. “There was so much to learn about my own body,” Sharma told OZY. She said that when she was growing up, “we weren’t talking about sexuality, or our bodies, or female pleasure.”

This year’s events at Matangi have focused on allowing young adults to think for themselves, which facilitators encourage by inviting participants to share their thoughts in a venue where they are not met with judgment.

Dipesh Khanal is a frequent attendee who has found particular value in the library’s collection of books by South Asian writers. “Getting to read the experiences of someone Asian is helpful and relevant, as their stories are some sort of a reflection of similar happenings in my family,” said Khanal, who further noted that such reading had also encouraged their personal reflection on sexuality.

Khanal, who uses the pronoun they, does not discuss sexuality with their parents, but did attend an affiliated three-month-long workshop called “QUEER: In Our Own Words” with other self-identified queer Nepali writers and artists.

“I feel a sense of freedom inside of me to discuss my perspectives at book discussions,” Khanal said.

Not everyone thinks that libraries are the appropriate venue for such conversations. On the other side of town, in central Kathmandu, sits Kaiser Library, home to more than 28,000 books and periodicals on topics including philosophy, astronomy, religion and biography. Suresh Kumar Yadav is head of the Kaiser Library and noted that its collection does include some titles on feminism. “But discussions on such subjects don't fall under the library’s program,” he said.