from a well-connected family. They have two chil-
dren, but Goma’s family constantly criticizes Ram-
achandra for his lack of economic success. His wife
does not echo their sentiments, but she does not
stand up to her family, either. Ramachandra enters
into a liaison with his student, Malathi, a young,
single mother who is trying to graduate from high
school. He finds his adulterous relationship liber-
ating and exciting. However, his wife and children
find out about his infidelities when Malathi en-
counters financial problems and becomes home-
less. She moves in with Ramachandra and his wife
at Goma’s invitation. As the plot evolves, Goma
leaves Ramachandra and lives with her parents;
his daughter resents him for his infidelities; and
Malathi returns to her first lover and the father of
her child. All of this action takes place against the
backdrop of Nepal’s political turmoil, a disastrous
and exploitative monarchy, and the Maoist insur-
gency against the monarchy.
Upadhyay is not necessarily a political writer,
but his new collection, Royal Ghosts, downplays
sexuality and focuses more on politics. His fic-
tion is not thinly veiled political history; rather,
it is about the sexual politics of a feudal society
struggling with modernity. Upadhyay’s work is
also significant in that it refuses to romanticize
or exoticize Nepali people; instead he shows how
Nepali people live, think, and act in their everyday
lives, and how some people use sexuality to resist
authority or escape from hardship.
Bibliography
Upadhyay, Samrat. Arresting God in Kathmandu. Bos-
ton: Houghton Mifflin/Mariner, 2001.
———. The Guru of Love. Boston: Houghton Mif-
flin/Mariner, 2003.
———. Royal Ghosts. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin/
Mariner, 2006.
Nalini Iyer
Uyehara, Denise (?– )
Denise Uyehara grew up in the suburbs of Orange
County in Southern California. Her parents, both
scientists, restricted television viewing, and Uye-
hara developed her imagination as she dreamed of
adventures and alternative worlds. She describes
her performance and dramatic work as an explora-
tion of “what it means to be an Asian American, a
queer-identified bisexual, a woman, and a human
being, not necessarily in that order.” Her work
also investigates issues of identity and belonging
in terms of family and community. Her own fam-
ily background is marked by her parents’ personal
experiences of the forced relocation of Japanese
Americans to internment camps following the
bombing of Pearl Harbor.
After her studies at the University of Califor-
nia, Irvine, where she majored in biology before
graduating with a B.A. in Comparative Literature,
Uyehara got involved in theater and performance
art as a community activist. The Los Angeles Riots
in 1992 and the terrorist attacks on September 11,
2001, provoked her to examine her responsibilities
as an artist and her accountability as an American
citizen. As both an artist and a citizen, Uyehara be-
lieves it is important to respond, to raise voices,
and to demonstrate. Committed to performance
as a powerful mode of narration, she makes inno-
vative use of the voice and body to tell stories. She
has returned as a guest instructor to the University
of California, Irvine, to teach drama and perfor-
mance in the Department of Asian Studies.
In her performances, Uyehara explores ques-
tions of stereotypes, sexual identities, memory,
and nationalism. Hello (Sex) Kitty: Mad Bitch on
Wheels juxtaposes Hello Kitty, the cute imported
icon of Japanese kawaii culture with the queer
gender identities of Kabuki. The Asian identities
she performs in this piece include a young man
finding it difficult to have sex and a lesbian stand-
up comic. Maps of City and Body is an interdisci-
plinary solo performance that has been performed
in Helsinki (1998), San Francisco (1998), Los An-
geles (1999), and Tokyo (2001). The performance
is motivated by memory: what has been lost and
found, and how the body serves as a record. Big
Head (2003) looks at what it means to pledge al-
legiance to a single nation in a multicultural coun-
try. She recalls the changes made in the Pledge
of Allegiance since its beginning in 1892 and the
irony of imprisoned Japanese Americans recitingUyehara, Denise 301