Tsering Tsomo Gurung

This piece won second place in the Open Institute's 2026 New Ethnographic Writing prize It had only been a month since the news of the death last reached Phoolmaya’s house. Today, her neighbor whom she still called didi, though they were the two oldest grandmothers in the

Wangmo’s father loves playing sho (dice). People say he has luck in his hands. His opponents sometimes complain that his constant winning feels unreal. But Wangmo’s father makes the funniest, most shameless jokes when he plays. “Sho para menny gyap manyung, tsenla bhomo menna nya manyung” (I have