Mankaji Shrestha, who has also writes as  Mankaji Shrestha Jena, is a Nepali Canadian writer, engineer, translator, interpreter, and cultural activist. He grew up in Chhahare Bazar, Gorkha, in central Nepal.   Trained as an electrical engineer and later established in Canada, Shrestha has worked across technical, literary, and community spheres. His writing in Nepali includes poetry, essays, travel writing, translation, and humorous prose, while his long involvement in literary and cultural organization has made him an active figure in Nepali literary life in Canada.

Shrestha earned his MSc in electrical engineering from the Order of Lenin Moscow Power Engineering Institute in 1976. After completing his studies, he worked in Nepal as an engineer for more than two decades. In 1998, he immigrated to Canada with his family and settled in Vancouver, British Columbia. From 2010 to 2012, he served as an energy management engineer for BC Hydro, conducting inspections and working with consultants on energy retrofit projects for schools, universities, hospitals, and other facilities. Since 2014, he has worked as an interpreter and translator. Alongside these professional roles, he has also worked as an electrical designer, visiting lecturer, and consultant on engineering projects, and has remained engaged in social and community work. He has served as a visiting lecturer and national consultant on engineering projects, volunteered with organizations such as the Oak Avenue Neighbourhood Hub Society, and campaigned for mandatory building permits for electrical wiring systems in Nepal.

He speaks English, Nepali, Russian, and Hindi fluently. These multiple engagements across engineering, language work, literature, and activism have shaped the wide scope of his public life. Shrestha’s literary formation drew on both Nepali and Russian writing. He read Russian writers such as Anton Chekhov, Alexander Pushkin, and Leo Tolstoy. Nepali works such as Laxmi Nibandha Sangraha, Niyamita Akasmikata, Kaukuti, and Tolstoy’s “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” shaped his literary sensibility.

He has published  several works in Nepali, including Indhan ra Urja (Fuel and Energy, 2015), Manko Baha Sabailai Kaha (Telling Everyone the Heart’s Outpourings, 2004), a collection of essays and travel writing, and, in collaboration with Bhim   Prakash Kattel, Thattyauli (A Collection of Jokes and Anecdotes, 2022) and Mutubhitraka Bhakharu (Rhythms of the Heart, 2022). He also tranalated Saroj K. Joshi’s Lost in America into Nepali as Amerikama Baralida (2018). These works show the breadth of his interests, moving from technical writing to travel narrative, humour, reflection, and poetry.

Among his literary publications, Manchhe, Manchhe Nai Bannuparchha (Human Beings Must Become Human), published in 2009 under the name Mankaji, occupies a central place. The collection is directed against discrimination and is driven by a strong humanist impulse. It brings together poems on patriotism, social concerns, and personal experience, and its multilingual structure gives it a distinctive place within Nepali diasporic writing. The volume includes forty-eight poems, twenty-eight muktakas, twenty-eight English poems, two Hindi poems, and one Russian poem. This multilingual arrangement reflects both Shrestha’s literary range and his movement across languages, places, and readerships.

Govind Singh Rawat, in his review of the book, notes that Shrestha utilizes free verse and a colloquial style, often incorporating words from various languages to enhance the rhythm and meaning of his verses. Rawat identifies patriotism as one of the major strands of the collection and notes the poet’s attachment to Nepal, his pain at separation from the homeland, and his hope for the country’s future. Rawat also identifies social and political criticism as a second major concern. In these poems, Shrestha writes against corruption, political instability, and social injustice, and presses for ethical and national renewal. Rawat cites lines such as “Sinful corrupt people jump into the car screaming” to show the sharpness of this social critique. Alongside nationalism, nostalgia, and political commentary, the collection also includes poems on daily life, relationships, and ordinary personal struggle. Rawat remarks on the simplicity and directness of the poems, their conversational tone, and the way the use of words from different languages gives the poetry an additional texture. The collection therefore combines accessibility with political and social engagement.

Shrestha has remained active in literary and cultural work in Canada. He founded the Nepali Literary and Cultural Society (Nepali Sahitya Samaj Canada) and initiated Nepalese Canadian Community Services in  Toronto. He won first place in the Art 4 Peace 2020 contest organized by the Global Peace Alliance in Surrey, British Columbia. In 2013, he received the Writers   International Network Dr. Asha Bhargava Memorial Award, was recognized as World Poetry Ambassador to Nepal by the World Poetry Reading Series and received the Distinguished Community Ambassador Award from the Writers’ International Network in Richmond, British Columbia. He also shared the 20th Community Leader Award in the Volunteering Section organized by Surrey Now-Leader. From 2014 to 2021, he initiated and organized Ekal Sanjh, a series of eighteen events that honoured Nepali singers and writers. These gatherings brought together poetry recitation, storytelling, reminiscence, singing, antakshari, potluck dinners, and dance, and served as important spaces for cultural continuity and collective memory in the diaspora.

His essay “Netale Nepal Banauna Sakenan, Abhinetale Po Sakchhan Ki?” (“Leaders Could Not Build Nepal, Can Actors Do It?  ”) shows another dimension of his writing. In this essay, Shrestha critiques Nepali political leadership by placing it beside the public role and unrealized potential of artists. Using examples such as the political involvement of Bhuvan K. C. and Rekha Thapa, he argues that artists often show greater commitment and social reach than political leaders, even though that potential remains underused. The essay calls for a unified artists’ organization and suggests that artistic energy, if organized and directed, could contribute meaningfully to national transformation. The essay thus extends his recurring concern with social responsibility, public ethics, and the relation between culture and national life.

Mankaji Shrestha’s contribution lies in the way he brings literary writing, translation, community activism, and public cultural work into a single body of practice. His writing engages questions of humanism, nation, corruption, belonging, memory, and everyday life, while his organizational efforts have helped create platforms for Nepali literary and cultural activity in Canada. He occupies an important place in Nepali literary culture in Canada because his work connects literature to community formation and cultural continuity, and because his career reflects the broad social worlds through which Nepali writing has continued to develop in the Canadian diaspora.

References

Mankaji. Manchhe, Manchhe Nai Bannuparchha. 2009.

Rawat, Govind Singh. “www.samakalinsahitya.com/sahitya/details/2845.” Samakalin Sahitya, 4 Jan. 2011, www.samakalinsahitya.com/sahitya/details/2845.

Shrestha, Mankaji. Chinko Dulai Canada Ko Basai. 2002.

Shrestha, Mankaji. Indhan ra Urja. Engineering Sahitya Samaj, 2015.

Shrestha, Mankaji. Manko Baha Sabailai Kaha. 2004.

Shrestha, Mankaji. Vidhyut Shastra. Pathyakram Bikas Kendra, Tribhuvan University, 1983.

Shrestha Jena, Mankaji. “Abujh Ko, Gyaani Ko.” Khabar Sampreshan Prayash, no. 84, 22 Dec. 2012, p. 7.

Shrestha Jena, Mankaji. “Daalme Nahin Pashupatinathma Kuch Kaalaa Hai.” AIM Khabar, 2020.

Shrestha Jena, Mankaji. “Ma ra Haami.” Sahityik Moolbato Online e-Patrika, vol. 2, no. 2, 2014, p. 29.

Shrestha Jena, Mankaji. “Mard ra Namard.” Khabar Sampreshan Prayash, no. 98, 13 Oct. 2013.

Shrestha Jena, Mankaji. “Netale Nepal Banau’n Sakenan, Abhinetale Po Sakchhan Ki?” Nepal Touch, 19 July 2022, https://nepaltouch.com/news/7475/07/2022.

Shrestha Jena, Mankaji. “Phalamlai Chumbak Nabanaau.” Gothalokhabar, 2020.

Shrestha Jena, Mankaji. “Ratnakar Baat Balmiki Banaau.” Dabu: 19th Anniversary Issue, Nepa Pasa Pucha Amerikaye, 2010, p. 15.

Shrestha Jena, Mankaji. “Rajdoot Hoin Deshadoot.” Dabu: 19th Anniversary Issue, Nepa Pasa Pucha Amerikaye, 2010, p. 15.

Shrestha Jena, Mankaji. “Yo Desh, Kasako?” AIM Khabar, 11 July 2020.

Shrestha Jena, Mankaji, translator. Amerikama Baralida.   By Saroj K. Joshi, 2018.

Shrestha Jena, Mankaji, and Bhim   Prakash Kattel. Mutubhitraka Bhakharu. 2022.

Shrestha Jena, Mankaji, and Bhim  Prakash Kattel. Thattyauli. 2022.