Kunzang Choden

Who is Kunzang Choden?

Kunzang Choden 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 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.