Krishna Dharabasi

Krishna Dharabasi is a major figure in contemporary Nepali fiction, an author whose daring subject matter and formal experiments have repeatedly shifted the direction of the Nepali novel. He won the Madan Puraskar for Jhola (2009), a devastating short novel set in the 1960s about a widow confronting the practice of sati, which became a national sensation and was later adapted into a critically acclaimed film.

Born in 1957 in the eastern district of Jhapa, Dharabasi brought the Mahabharata's Radha to life in a powerful and self-aware re-imagining that many credit with pioneering a new, reflexive mode of Nepali fiction. His other works, including Reshama and the historical epic Awaran, are known for their psychological depth, sweeping scope and willingness to confront taboo. Across more than four decades of writing, Dharabasi has remained one of Nepal's most inventive, unpredictable and widely discussed novelists.