Shankar Lamichhane

Shankar Lamichhane endured a difficult childhood. Shortly after his family moved to Banaras, his brother died. About a decade later, his mother died too. He then returned to Kathmandu and completed his studies at Tri-Chandra College.

He became widely regarded as one of Nepal’s foremost essayists. He wrote with a lyrical, playful rhythm. This set him apart from the more ponderous, slow and heavy, style common among the writers of his time. In 1967, he won the Madan Puraskar for his collection Abstract Chintan Pyaj.

Some years before his early death, he stopped writing. An anonymous accusation of plagiarism, copying someone else’s work and claiming it as your own, discouraged him. Literary critics still debate this accusation today.