Books set in Nepal

About the literature of Nepal

Nepal's literature is often traced to Bhanubhakta Acharya, the nineteenth-century poet whose version of the Ramayana earned him the title Adikavi, or first poet. Most writing is in Nepali, but Nepal Bhasa, the language of the Newar people, and Maithili also have written literatures, and some writers choose English. Recent work often returns to the Maoist insurgency of 1996 to 2006.

Buddhisagar's Karnali Blues, translated from Nepali, has a son recalling his father's decline in the remote Karnali hills and in Kathmandu. Narayan Wagle's Palpasa Cafe tells of an artist moving between the capital and villages scarred by the civil war. Manjushree Thapa's The Tutor of History uses a small-town election campaign in the 1990s to show caste and gender in provincial Nepal. Samrat Upadhyay's Arresting God in Kathmandu gathers stories of middle-class city families.