N.H. Manandhar (Nicki) is an Australian author currently living in Kathmandu, Nepal. Having volunteered in Nepal a few times, Nicki made the life-changing decision to move to Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, in June 2003. Nicki worked for three years in Kathmandu with a local non-government organisation on a project for street children — many of whom were injecting drug users. For the next five years Nicki worked out of Pokhara where she and a colleague started their own charity and worked with orphaned, abandoned, and vulnerable children. During this period Nicki also married a Nepali man and threw herself into family life in Nepal.
Along with many other expats living in Nepal at the time, Nicki was deeply affected by the horror-stories coming from the civil war (13 Feb 1996 – 21 Nov 2006). The local media painted frightening pictures, and incident reports coming from both national and international organisations presented stark and often appalling updates on the atrocities committed by both sides. Nicki wanted to bring to life the reports, facts, and statistics about the casualties of war, the endemic discrimination, the grinding poverty.
Nicki became determined to write a novel that gave a voice to those who had suffered, and moved back to Australia in December 2011 to focus on her writing (with regular visits back to Nepal each year). As soon as Nicki embarked on her writing journey she discovered her true passion, and the single novel she’d intended to write evolved into a number of manuscripts detailing lives impacted by poverty, discrimination, alcohol and drug abuse, civil war atrocities, corruption, sex trafficking and homelessness – all based on real stories, real lives.
At the beginning of 2023 Nicki and her husband returned to live in Kathmandu, bringing their little rescue dog Coco with them. In October 2023, Nicki published the first in a series of books, Sun & Shadow (see above) and is currently working on the second novel in the series. She has also written a short prequel, which is freely available as a downloadable e-Book [scroll down to see how you can get your copy].
For now, Nicki and her husband plan to remain in Nepal, with regular visits to see family and friends on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia.
