Kunzang Choden

About

Kunzang Choden is a Bhutanese author, folklorist, and cultural preservationist, widely recognised as the first Bhutanese woman to publish a novel in English. Born in 1952 in the Bumthang district of central Bhutan, she grew up surrounded by the country’s rich oral storytelling traditions. At the age of nine, she was sent to school in India, where she learned English. She later studied psychology at Indraprastha College in Delhi and sociology at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in the United States. Choden initially worked as a teacher and later for the United Nations Development Programme in Bhutan. From the 1990s onward, she devoted much of her writing to documenting Bhutanese folklore, traditional beliefs, and women’s experiences. Her books include Folktales of Bhutan (1994), Bhutanese Tales of the Yeti (1997), and Tales in Colour and Other Stories (2009). Her acclaimed novel The Circle of Karma (2005) explores the changing roles of women in Bhutanese society. Through fiction and folklore, Choden preserves cultural traditions while examining the tensions between tradition, modernisation, and gender expectations. She also co-founded Riyang Books, a Bhutanese publishing house established in 2012 to support local literature and writers.