⏱ 4 min read
Questions like “Who wrote Muna Madan?” or “Gitanjali is written by whom?” appear in almost every Kharidar, Nayab Subba and Section Officer General Knowledge paper. They are easy marks if you remember the pairs. This note groups the most-asked books and authors into simple tables: Nepali literature first, then literary titles, awards and world classics.
1. Famous Nepali poets and their works
| Writer | Title / honour | Important works |
|---|---|---|
| Bhanubhakta Acharya | Adikavi (first poet) | Bhanubhakta Ramayan (Nepali translation of the Ramayana) |
| Motiram Bhatta | Yuvakavi | Wrote Bhanubhakta’s biography and first printed his Ramayan |
| Lekhnath Paudyal | Kavi Shiromani | Tarun Tapasi, Pinjarako Suga |
| Laxmi Prasad Devkota | Mahakavi | Muna Madan, Shakuntala (mahakavya), Sulochana |
| Balkrishna Sama | Natya Samrat (king of drama) | Mutuko Byatha, Prahlad |
| Madhav Prasad Ghimire | Rastrakavi | Gauri (elegy for his wife) |
Muna Madan is written in the folk Jhyaure metre and tells the story of Madan, who goes to Lhasa to earn money and leaves his wife Muna behind.
2. Famous Nepali novels and stories
| Book | Author |
|---|---|
| Seto Bagh | Diamond Shumsher Rana |
| Shirishko Phool | Parijat |
| Basain | Lil Bahadur Chhetri |
| Sumnima, Teen Ghumti, Modiain, Narendra Dai | B.P. Koirala |
| Pallo Gharko Jhyal | Govind Bahadur Malla “Gothale” |
| Ek Chihan | Hridaya Chandra Singh Pradhan |
| Palpasa Café | Narayan Wagle |
| Radha, Jhola | Krishna Dharabasi |
| Karnali Blues | Buddhisagar |
| Seto Dharti | Amar Neupane |
| Yogmaya | Neelam Karki Niharika |
| Summer Love | Subin Bhattarai |
B.P. Koirala also wrote Jail Journal and the autobiography Atmabrittanta.
3. Madan Puraskar in short
- The Madan Puraskar is the most respected literary prize for a Nepali-language book.
- It was set up in 2012 BS by Jagadamba Shree Rana in memory of Madan Shumsher.
- The first Madan Puraskar went to Satya Mohan Joshi for Hamro Lok Sanskriti.
- Award-winning novels often asked: Shirishko Phool (Parijat), Palpasa Café (Narayan Wagle), Radha (Krishna Dharabasi), Seto Dharti (Amar Neupane), Yogmaya (Neelam Karki Niharika).
4. Classic and religious texts
| Book | Author |
|---|---|
| Ramayana | Valmiki |
| Mahabharata | Ved Vyas |
| Abhigyan Shakuntalam | Kalidasa |
| Arthashastra | Kautilya (Chanakya) |
| The Light of Asia (life of the Buddha) | Edwin Arnold |
5. World books on politics, economics and science
| Book | Author |
|---|---|
| The Republic | Plato |
| Politics | Aristotle |
| The Prince | Niccolò Machiavelli |
| Leviathan | Thomas Hobbes |
| The Social Contract | Jean-Jacques Rousseau |
| The Wealth of Nations (1776) | Adam Smith |
| Das Kapital | Karl Marx |
| On the Origin of Species | Charles Darwin |
| A Brief History of Time | Stephen Hawking |
| Sapiens | Yuval Noah Harari |
6. Famous novels, plays and autobiographies
| Book | Author |
|---|---|
| Gitanjali (Nobel Prize 1913) | Rabindranath Tagore |
| Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth | William Shakespeare |
| War and Peace | Leo Tolstoy |
| Don Quixote | Miguel de Cervantes |
| Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four | George Orwell |
| The Old Man and the Sea | Ernest Hemingway |
| Harry Potter series | J.K. Rowling |
| The Story of My Experiments with Truth | Mahatma Gandhi |
| The Discovery of India | Jawaharlal Nehru |
| Long Walk to Freedom | Nelson Mandela |
| Wings of Fire | A.P.J. Abdul Kalam |
| Mein Kampf | Adolf Hitler |
7. Books about Nepal and the Himalaya
| Book | Author | About |
|---|---|---|
| Annapurna | Maurice Herzog | First ascent of Annapurna I (1950) |
| Into Thin Air | Jon Krakauer | The 1996 Everest disaster |
| Tiger for Breakfast | Michel Peissel | Boris Lissanevitch and early tourism in Kathmandu |
8. Books and authors at a glance
| Book | Author |
|---|---|
| Muna Madan | Laxmi Prasad Devkota |
| Ramayan (Nepali) | Bhanubhakta Acharya |
| Shirishko Phool | Parijat |
| Seto Bagh | Diamond Shumsher Rana |
| Basain | Lil Bahadur Chhetri |
| Palpasa Cafe | Narayan Wagle |
| Divya Upadesh | Prithvi Narayan Shah |
| Arthashastra | Kautilya |
9. Memory tips
- Group books by author: Devkota – Muna Madan, Sulochana, Shakuntala.
- Note the Madan Puraskar winners, which are asked often.
- Bhanubhakta Acharya is called Adikavi (the first poet) of Nepali.
10. How this topic is asked in the exam
Objective questions give a book and ask the author, or the reverse. Current affairs papers ask the latest Madan Puraskar winner.
📌 Key points to remember
- Adikavi = Bhanubhakta; Mahakavi = Devkota; Yuvakavi = Motiram; Kavi Shiromani = Lekhnath; Natya Samrat = Sama; Rastrakavi = Madhav Ghimire.
- Muna Madan is in Jhyaure metre; Gauri is Madhav Ghimire’s elegy.
- Seto Bagh = Diamond Shumsher; Shirishko Phool = Parijat; Basain = Lil Bahadur Chhetri.
- B.P. Koirala: Sumnima, Teen Ghumti, Modiain, Narendra Dai, Jail Journal.
- First Madan Puraskar: Satya Mohan Joshi, Hamro Lok Sanskriti.
- Gitanjali = Tagore; Das Kapital = Marx; Wealth of Nations = Adam Smith; The Prince = Machiavelli.
📝 Quiz
Test yourself: Famous Books and Authors
50 questions check what you read about Famous Nepali poets and their works, Classic and religious texts and Books about Nepal and the Himalaya. Each attempt picks 25 at random.
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