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Bhutan
Kuzang choden
Kunzang Choden (born 1952) is a Bhutanese writer. She is
the first Bhutanese woman to write a novel in English.
Choden was born in Bumthang District. Her parents were
feudal landlords. At the age of nine, her father sent her to
school in India, where she learned English. She has a BA
Honours in Psychology from Indraprastha College in Delhi
and a BA in Sociology from the University of Nebraska-
Lincoln. She has worked for the United Nations
Development Program in Bhutan. She and her Swiss
husband currently live in Thimphu.
The Circle of Karma, published by Penguin Books (India) in
2005, is her first novel. It takes place in the 1950s, the initial
period of imperially regulated modernization in Bhutan. The
main character, a Bhutanese woman and road-builder by
occupation, is forced to deal both with the traditional,
restrictive gender roles of pre-modern Bhutan and the new
kinds of sexism developing as men gain economic freedom.
Much of the novel is also set in North India.
In 2012, Choden and her family founded the publishing
house, Riyang Books, in Thimphu.
During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Choden's film-maker
daughter, Dechen Roder, made video recordings of her
mother reading her stories and posted them to YouTube for
children stuck at home during the lockdown.