“It’s a story about the meeting of cultures. In its end, it’s about two cultures meeting, how they interact and how they can blend together while respecting both cultures independently,” said Lochan Sharma, Keene State first-year and co-author of the upcoming young adult novel “Go Home.”
Sharma co-wrote the book with Terry Farish, author of numerous other works including “The Good Braider” and “Either the Beginning or the End of the World.” The story is told between two narrators: Olive, a white New Hampshire teenager, and Samir, a recent immigrant to the area from Nepal.
The character of Samir is a reflection of Sharma. One of the author’s main roles throughout the book’s creation was to draw upon his own personal and familial experiences as part of a Nepali immigrant family to make the characters feel realistic.
“I’ve taken notes from other relationships I’ve seen, like between my cousins and their parents, between myself and my uncles or grandparents,” said Sharma. “These other characters are an amalgamation of other people I know.”
“[Farish] wanted to bring in someone who could stand by the Bhutanese-Nepali character,” said Shelley Tanaka, the book’s editor at Groundwood Books. “[Samir is] not a token, he’s a kid who has grown up in a refugee camp. He knows how to fight and this is going against his nature in many ways.”
Sharma said Farish also approached him with the project because she knew he had good language skills. She had been in contact with Sharma’s parents since 2011, when the three collaborated on a book called “The Story of a Pumpkin” during Farish’s time at New Hampshire Humanities.
“Lochan guided that characterization, that plot, everything Nepali,” said Farish. “It was because Lochan was co-author that we could do that.”
When “Go Home” is released in August 2024, it will mark four years since Farish and Sharma began collaboration. Farish had an outline of the story and sought Sharma’s help in developing it further.
“It’s timely in a political way,” Farish said. “One of my hopes is that teens could read it… Conversation is what I hope this could inspire.”
“The writing is incredibly strong, it’s very compelling,” said Karen Li, the publisher at Groundwood Books. “These are characters to fall in love with, even if you don’t agree with them, which I think was a really important part of this story. I think that anything we publish always has to feel urgent and timely in terms of a cultural conversation.”
Li added, “I didn’t want [Sharma] to just be a cultural reader to [“Go Home”]. I was really hoping it would be a full creative partnership and I think it turned out to be the case, so it’s great.” She said Farish and Sharma are both examples of people she would typically bring in as cultural readers if they were not already authoring the book.
Sharma is a biology major here at KSC with aspirations of becoming a medical doctor. He described himself as having “a wide variety of interests,” including writing and music.
Additionally, Sharma said he wrote fiction stories when he was a child. Now as an adult, Sharma plans on joining some of KSC’s music ensembles in the spring semester. He also works at the Keene International Market and balances a course load intended to achieve graduation within three years rather than four.
“I had to make time for [writing “Go Home”] outside of school, outside of my social life,” said Sharma. “That was probably the most difficult part about it. Honestly, it prepared me for college, having to make my own time, make my own schedule.”
He added, “While I don’t think it’s ever going to become a career of mine, it’s something I do think I’m going to continue doing. It’s just a nice way to get my creative visions out. It’s either music or [writing] that’s going to keep me creatively stimulated.”
Charlotte King can be contacted at
cking@kscequinox.com
