Suman Pokhrel

Suman Pokhrel (सुमन पोखरेल; born September 21, 1967) is a Nepali poet, lyricist, playwright, translator and artist.

Universities in Nepal and India have included his poetry in their syllabus.

Pokhrel is the sole writer to receive the SAARC Literary Award twice.

Pokhrel was born on September 21, 1967, in Mills Area, Biratnagar, to Mukunda Prasad Pokhrel and Bhakta Devi Pokhrel.

Pokhrel attended Bal Mandir, a government owned Kindergarten in Biratnagar, until he was five.

Pokhrel got moved to his ancestral village of Kachide in Dhankuta at the age of seven and raised there by his paternal grandmother.

His paternal grandfather Bidhyanath Pokhrel was a poet and a politician.

He was introduced to literature early through the influence of his grandfather's library, filled with Nepali, Hindi and classic Sanskrit literature.

At the age of twelve, he moved back to Biratnagar to live with his parents.

Pokhrel was mentored by his father, who was an engineer by profession and a bibliophile with a keen interest in art and literature.

Pokhrel earned his BSc, MBA and BL from the Tribhuvan University, Nepal.

Pokhrel joined the Nepali civil service in Nepal Government as a Section Officer in February 1995.

He left the job and joined Plan International in December 1998 as a development activist and went to the remote hilly region of the country.

The job demanded visits to the more remote areas of the region.

A multilingual poet, Pokhrel has written in Nepali, English, Hindi and Urdu languages.

Whereas, his works have been translated into several other languages, and are published in magazines and journals from across the countries.

Many of his works have been translated into other languages by various translators including himself.

Pokhrel has read his poems for both national and international audiences.

He has read his poems in SAARC Festivals of Literature in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2015.

He received this award in 2013 and 2015 for his own poetry and his contributions to poetry and art in general in the South Asian region.

He read his poem in SAARC Charter Day Celebrations on December 8, 2013, in New Delhi, India as an especial invitee.

He recited his poems in Nepali during a monthly two-poet poetry recital program in Kathmandu in March 2015.

He read his poems at All India Poets' Meet in Orissa, India in February 2016 as an especial invitee poet from foreign country.

As a translator, Pokhrel has translated works of several poets and writers from around the world into Nepali.

He has translated William Shakespeare's play The Tempest into Nepali as Aandhibehari which was published by Nepal Academy in 2018.

His translations of poetry of Anna Akhmatova, Anna Swir, Allen Ginsberg, Delmira Agustini, Forough Farrokhzad, Gabriela Mistral, Jacques Prévert, Mahmoud Darwish, Nazik Al Malaika, Nazim Hikmet, Nizar Qabbani, Octavio Paz, Pablo Neruda, Yehuda Amichai.

and Sylvia Plath, are collected in Manpareka Kehi Kavita, an anthology of poetry in Nepali translation.

His translations of fifty one of Kannada Language poets including Kuvempu, G. S. Shivarudrappa, D. R. Bendre, V. K. Gokak, U. R. Ananthamurthy, Siddalingaiah, P. Lankesh, K. S. Nissar Ahmed, Chandrashekhar Patil, Baraguru Ramachandrappa, Doddarange Gowda, Chennaveera Kanavi, Sumatheendra R Nadig, H. S. Venkateshamurthy, Gopalakrishna Adiga, Allama Prabhu, Manu Baligar, S. R. Ekkundi and Jayant Kaikini are collected in anthology titled Shashwat Awaj.

Other prominent poets that he has translated into Nepali include Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Sahir Ludhiyanvi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Gulzar and Uday Prakash among others.

Ajit Cour, Indira Dangi, Sheema Kalbasi, Anamika, Kalpna Singh-Chitnis Azita Ghahreman and Hélène Cardona are other contemporary writers and poets whom he has translated into Nepali.

Pokhrel's Nepali translations have been considered as among a few best literary translations brought into Nepali.

Pokhrel has translated works of many of Nepali-language poets and writers, including Laxmi Prasad Devkota, Gopal Prasad Rimal, Bhupi Sherchan, Ishwar Ballav, Abhi Subedi and Krishna Bhooshan Bal into English, Hindi and Urdu.