The Kathmandu Tribune began as an online news site in 2017 and now publishes as a bilingual journal of literature and political commentary in English and Nepali, edited from Nepal and Canada.
The pairing of literature and commentary is deliberate. Nepal’s political and social upheavals over the past decade have outrun the vocabulary of conventional news—the viral cycle flattens what deserves depth, and hard reporting alone has not given younger readers a usable grasp of the country’s history, constitution, or place between its neighbors. Literature slows the reader down. Commentary sharpens the questions. We think the two belong together.
Working across Nepal and Canada also shapes what we publish. The Nepali diaspora is now a serious part of the country’s intellectual and economic life, and the conversations happening in Toronto, Sydney, the Gulf, and the UK are not separate from the conversations happening in Kathmandu. The Tribune treats them as one readership.
We publish essays, reportage, poetry, translation, and criticism by writers working in and on Nepal—with a particular interest in voices the mainstream press and the algorithm both tend to miss: writers outside Kathmandu, work in Nepali that deserves a wider readership, and arguments that take longer than a news cycle to make.
Editor-in-Chief: Arun Budhathoki