Devkota in Translation Mahesh Paudyal Of all the Nepali men of letters, Devkota stands out as one of the first writers to feel and air the need for translating Nepali literature into different world languages. His Tashkent address, delivered as early as in 1958, was basically rooted in explicating this dire need for translation, which, to him, was the most fundamental prerequisite for taking Nepali literature to the global front. He himself lived up to his words by taking two approaches: himself sitting down to translate some of his works previously written in Nepali, and translating some of the finest works of his contemporaries like Lekhanath Paudyal, Siddhicharan Shrestha and Shyamdas Vaishnav. His own works Shakuntal and “The Lunatic”, besides a series of poems published in a bilingual edition of Indreni showcase Devkota’s calibre as a translator par excellence . Translation was one of the key strategies through which Devkota’s fame crossed the limits of Nepali l