KATHMANDU

Literary writer Krishna Prakash Shrestha passed away on Monday, while undergoing treatment at a hospital in Moscow. He was 82.

He contracted the corona virus about a month ago and has since developed other health problems.

He was awarded the Jagdambashree Award 2059 BS for his invaluable contribution for the development of Nepali language and literature while living abroad. He was also awarded the Pushkin Gold Medal in Russia.

He was one of the first Nepali students to study in the Soviet Union. After graduating with a Master's degree in Journalism from Moscow's Lomonosov University in 1963, he became a newsreader on the newly established Radio Moscow's Nepali program. From the same year, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, until the Nepali service was discontinued in 1993, he continued to serve as the operator of the service.

In the years that followed, he was associated with the Institute of Oriental Studies in Russia and continued his literary activities. He was a well-known figure in Nepali literature and especially in the field of literary translation. He introduced Russian literature to Nepali literary lovers by translating the works of world famous Russian writers Leo Tolstoy, Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov and many others into Nepali.

He also established the World Language Translation Institute in Moscow with the aim of promoting translation literature, in which Nepali students studying in Moscow also became part of it. In the political arena, he gained fame by translating popular texts of Marxist literature into Nepali. Since the Soviet era, his works on contemporary political, social, literary activities and public life have been regularly published in newspapers in Nepal and the Soviet Union and Russia.

He is survived by his two daughters and two grandchildren.