Nine years in the making, former talk show host, model and playwright Shivani Singh Tharu’s debut novel, Kathmanduma Ek Din, is coming out this April. The publisher of the novel, Fineprint, organised a programme at Moksh in Jhamsikhel on Monday to unveil the cover of the upcoming novel. The cover launch was accompanied with the sound of a hard-rock riff and waves of disco light. What was uncovered was a poster depicting a sinewy man, donning jeans and a shirt, a pistol in one hand, a vulture on his back, his nose replaced with vulture’s beak. A hazy, cluttured view of a cityscape makes the background of the cover image.

“It took me nine years to write this book,” Tharu said, speaking at the event, “During that time many of my juniors published their books and became famous. I, on the other hand, became notorious for taking all these years and keeping my readers and well wishers waiting.”

Speaking about the genesis of the book, Tharu said that even though she is associated with the glamour field, she always had a keen interest in the political developments of the country. “There was a fire inside of me, an aggression, a certain restlessness, that pushed me to continue writing. These nine years didn’t go in vain,” Tharu went on, “I took the time to hone my craft and conducted researches ranging from arm-chairs to fields. I visited Siraha and Saptari a few times to give the novel a sense of verisimilitude and to give the novel’s title character, Ghurra Ram, the justice he deserved.”

The book, according to novelist Amar Nyaupane who anchored the cover launch event, is written around a character from a marginalised community. “I have always been fascinated with Shivani’s poise back from the days when she ran the talk show. If that was a fun, quirky show to watch, the book is quite serious,” Nyaupane said, adding, “The book has to do with the recent political uprisings and revolutions that have taken place in the country. This is a special day for Nepali literature. The book took a long time to come out, but I believe it’s like an expensive whiskey—it has gotten better with age.”

The book, according to Tharu, narrates the story taking place in a single day in Kathmandu, as the title suggest, though it revisits the older times in the lives of its characters.

Though Kathmanduma Ek Din is Tharu’s debut novel, it is not her first writing venture; previously, she has written a play, Virtual Reality (which was first staged at Gurukul in 2007), and several radio plays for BBC Nepali Sewa.

Kathmanduma Ek Din will hit shelves on April 2.