Forbidden idiom and unifying language
The identity of a territory is intimately linked to its words, the first inhabitants of the Kathmandu valley, the Newars, speak nepālbhāsha, also known as Newari, a language that began to be written as early as the 12th century as evidenced by a palm leaf, a traditional medium in Asia, handwritten and discovered at the Uku Bahal Buddhist monastery in Patan, it would date from 1114. Two centuries later, the works are interested in medicine, history or astrology, but it is usual to give birth to Nepalese literature with Mahindra Malla, poet and king of the 16th century belonging to a very long dynasty that ruled the valley for six centuries. The performing arts, dance, theatre, being highly prized, there is no doubt that many plays, hymns or epics were born during this golden age, and if the West is unaware of their existence, it is not so much because of cultural distance as the consequence of the arrival in power of another family, the Ra'an, in the mid-nineteenth century. The use of nawari in writing was then purely and simply forbidden, writers thrown in prison, books confiscated. As censorship continued, the spoken language evolved, and soon the old texts seemed abstruse or indigestible, until one man, Nisthananda Bajracharya (1858-1935), modernised and simplified the style, offering the nawari the chance to be reborn in writing, although this required a certain amount of secrecy. Thus, it was in India that he composed in 1909 Ek Bishanti Prajnaparamita, the first work in Nawari to come out of the press. Although restrictions were gradually lifted, a new alphabet was adopted and a grammar was created, few speakers today use this idiom. The official language, chosen as the unifying language, is Nepali, of which everyone has mastered at least the basic greeting(namaste!), and which also owes much to a writer, Bhanubhakta Acharya (1814-1868).
The future "Aadikavi", "First Poet", according to the title with which he was honoured, was born in Chundi Ramgha. It was his grandfather who educated him and taught him the sacred texts written in Sanskrit, an ancient and erudite language, certainly mastered by the elite, but totally inaccessible to the majority of the lowest castes. After a stay in Benares, Bhanubhakta Acharya embarked on a crazy undertaking, the translation into Nepali of a seminal work, the Râmâyana, which nevertheless contains several thousand verses, which, in addition to the respect of the metrics he imposes on himself, obliges him to enrich the vocabulary of his mother tongue because some terms have no equivalent. A considerable amount of work that ends up earning him recognition, as much as his poetic writings or his social commitment.
From poetry to the appearance of the novel
As has been said, until the middle of the 20th century, the country was under the yoke of a well-established power, but as a notable sign of openness, a first literary review was launched in 1934, Sharada, and a second, Bharati, appeared in 1949, benefiting from an influence beyond the limits of the capital and encouraging the emergence of new writers. Let us quote in particular the "Maha Kavi", "Great poet", Laxmi Prasad Devkota (1909-1959) who, with Muna Madan, quickly acquired his letters of nobility. This reinterpretation of a popular Nawari ballad depicts a merchant leaving his young wife to do business in Tibet. On his return he learns of her death, a great romantic drama of universal significance. Guru Prasad Mainali (1900-1971) became famous for his short stories, inspired by country life, which are still popular among students today. Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala, another politician, was the first to approach literature from a psychological perspective; his writings were scattered and extensively censored. Finally, on the theatre side, it is impossible not to think of Bala Krishna Sama (1903-1981), the Shakespeare of Nepal. If poetry was in vogue in the 1930s, since the 1960s the novel has occupied an important place. This was partly due to the publication in 1965 of The Blue Flower of the Jacaranda which, although it caused a scandal, was awarded the prestigious Madan Puraskar Prize. In this impossible love story between a former soldier and a sick young woman, Parijat, who died in 1993 in Kathmandu, explores the delicate issue of patriarchy. Thus, twentieth-century Nepalese literature did not hesitate to be critical, even revolutionary, which led some writers to spend a few years in prison, as was the case with Gopal Prasad Rimal (1918-1973) and Siddhi Charan Shrestha (1912-1992). In any case, she is very much alive, as evidenced by the prolix Bhim Nidhi Tiwari, or the young Prajwal Parajuly, born to a Nepalese mother and an Indian father in 1984 in the state of Sikkim, whose Fuir et revenir, an epic tale of a family reunion, was translated by Emmanuelle Collas in 2020.
