25 best stories announced

By A Staff Reporter,Kathmandu, Dec. 23: A total of 25 best stories out of the stories submitted for the seventh edition of the Dish Home Bakhari Short Story Writing Competition–2082, have been selected.

A press statement released by Bahrakhari Media states that the selection was made by the main jury panel of the competition, coordinated by noted litterateur Ashesh Malla, with fiction writers Manju Kanchuli and Avaya Shrestha as members.

The writers whose stories have been selected for top 25 are Chetanath Acharya, Umesh Shrestha, Shekhar Dahit, Shivraj Shahi, Krishnaraj Sarbahari, Ritesh Gurung, Pragya Niraula, Sita Pandey, Bhogendra Lingden, Haribol Kafle, Basanta Bayung Rai (Namdocha), Laxman Sitaula, Indraprasad Gotame (Jagatjang), Jamuna Bhattarai, Anita Panthi, Avinash Bhattarai, Mandira Madhushree, and Amit Ghimire.

Similarly, stories by Tikaram Pokharel, Uma Sharma, Anita Koirala, Bishnu S Rai, Damodar Dhungel, Prakash Kumar Sharma, and Dr. Himalal Shrestha have also been selected.

For the seventh edition of the Dish Home Bakhari Short Story Writing Competition, a call for submissions was announced on October 17 (Asoj 31), following which 1,168 stories were received from Nepal and abroad. From these submissions, an internal jury panel shortlisted 59 stories, which were then forwarded to the main jury panel formed under the coordination of Malla for the final selection of the top 25 stories.

From this year onward, the competition will award cash prizes of Rs. 200,000, Rs. 100,000, and Rs. 60,000 respectively to the writers of the first, second, and third best stories, along with trophies and certificates.

A book featuring the 25 selected stories will be published, and the remaining 22 writers will each receive Rs. 7,000 as an honorarium.

The anthology titled 'Utkrista 25 Katha- 2082', along with the announcement of the first, second, and third prize winners, will be officially launched amid a special ceremony to be held in Kathmandu on Thursday, December 26 (Push 10).