Nepal, Sept. 15 -- A problem of choice shapes the hermeneutics of Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala's politics and literature. His karma of having to choose between two opposites may have given him an existentialist position, to use the philosophical jargon. Speaking on poet Bairagi Kanhila, recipient of this year's BP Koirala literary prize, at the awarding ceremony on September 10, 2019, I interpreted Koirala's famous binary between literature and politics. Koirala famously said: 'I am a socialist in politics and an anarchist in literature'. Narahari Acharya and I have disputed this binary. Discussing Koirala's statement, Acharya has written a chapter in his book Parishilan (1998), and I have written too many articles to mention here.

Koirala...