The changing face of children’s literature in Nepal

AT THE 31ST Congress of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), held in Copenhagen in 2008, the scholar Biswambhar Ghimire presented a paper outlining the history of children’s literature in Nepal. His research is dotted with important dates and details  reminding us that the Nepali general public was largely prohibited from attaining even basic literacy until the fall of the autocratic Rana regime and Nepal’s first, abortive experiment with democratic rule in the 1950s. This historical constraint is worth keeping in mind as we turn to the current state of children’s literature in Nepal, which can be understood as part of the broader landscape of elementary education in the country. 

The first book written in the Nepali language exclusively for children was Gorkha Paila by Gangadhar Shastri, published in 1892. Until then, Sanskrit was the primary language that formally appeared in print. Gradually, a handful of generous elite intellectuals and reform-minded rulers wrote books for children; among them was Jaya Prithvi Bahadur Singh, who published a few in 1901.