On receiving the SAARC Literary Award, Suman Pokhrel joined a small circle of writers from across South Asia recognized for their contributions to the region's literary life — a fitting marker for a writer whose work moves across languages, forms, and borders.

Born on 21 September 1967 in Biratnagar, Nepal, Pokhrel pursued his education at Adarsha Higher Secondary School and Mahendra Morang Adarsh Multiple Campus before going on to Tribhuvan University. That formation in Nepal's educational institutions provided the foundation for a career that would span poetry, playwriting, lyric writing, translation, and the visual arts. He works in Nepali, English, Hindi, Urdu, and Maithili, a range that positions him as a writer for whom language itself is a kind of subject, or at least a terrain to be crossed rather than confined to.

His notable works include the poetry collection Manpareka Kehi Kavita, Jeevanko Chheubaata, and Hazaar Aankhaa Yee Aankhaamaa, alongside the work Yajnaseni and the English-language piece The Taj Mahal & My Love. Taken together, these titles suggest a writer at ease moving between lyric intimacy and larger imaginative projects, between the Nepali literary tradition and English-language expression. As a lyricist and playwright in addition to a poet, Pokhrel works across multiple registers of the written and performed word, while his practice as an artist extends his creative activity beyond the page.

The Library of Congress records him under the authorized label "Pokharela, Sumana, 1967-," a cataloguing detail that speaks to the international reach of his work and its place within formal archival and literary systems beyond South Asia. The SAARC Literary Award remains among the most concrete markers of recognition his career has accumulated, situating his writing within a broader regional conversation that crosses national boundaries much as his multilingual practice does.