Kedar Man Vyathit

Kedar Man Vyathit
Young Kedar Man Vyathit
Native name
केदारमान व्यथित
Born
Kedar Man Shrestha

Oct/Nov 1914(Kartik 1971 BS)
Died10 September 1998(1998-09-10) (aged 83–84)
Pen nameVyathit
Occupation
  • Poet
  • Activist
  • Politician
Language
  • Nepali
  • Newar
  • Hindi
NationalityNepali
Education3rd grade
Periodc. 1946–c. 1983
Years activec. 1939–1998
Notable awards
Vednidhi Puraskar
1989-90
Jyotirmaya Trisaktipatta– First class
year unknown
Jagadambashri Puraskar
year unknown
Gorkha Dakshinbahu– First class
year unknown
SpouseJyotsana Pradhan (c. 1932–unknown)
Children10 (6 sons, 4 daughters)
Parents
  • Suryaman Shrestha (father)
  • Padma Kumari Shrestha (mother)
Founding secretary of Nepali Citizens Rights Committee
In office
c. 1940 CE – unknown
Minister of Transport and Communications
In office
1962–unknown
MonarchMahendra
Chancellor of Royal Nepal Academy
In office
unknown–unknown
Preceded byKing Mahendra
Minister of Home Affairs
In office
c. 1979–unknown
MonarchBirendra
Founding secretary of Nepali Literature Institute
In office
1962 – c. 1964
President of Nepali Literature Institute
In office
c. 1964–unknown

Kedar Man Vyathit (Nepali: केदारमान व्यथित; 1914–1998) was a Nepali poet of Nepali, Newar and Hindi languages. Educated up to the third grade, he started out as an employee of a timber godown, but later co-founded Nepali Citizens Rights Forum with Sukraraj Shastri. Sentenced to 18 years for treason by the Rana regime in 1997 BS (1942 CE), he was tutored in poetry by Siddhicharan Shrestha in prison. After the fall of the Ranas, he grew close to the monarchy, becoming a member of King Tribhuvan's Adviser Assembly, and, later, cabinet minister during both King Mahendra and King Birendra's reign. He was confined to bed for a number of his final years, having injured himself in a fall.

He published at least 23 volumes of poetry— sixteen in Nepali, and four each in Newari and Hindi. His poems are usually written in metrical verse and are very brief, rarely exceeding a page in length. His early poems are melancholic, pessimistic or revolutionary, in keeping with his incarceration during a time of revolution against the tyranny of the Ranas. His later poems have themes of human love including some eroticism, and natural beauty. He played a pivotal role in the development of Nepali literature, both as a central figure of a literary generation that transitioned it from a more Sanskritic Hindu tradition to a modern one, and through his organisational activities, chief among them, a series of national and international literary conferences.