Radha Paudel trained as a nurse. She left a government job in her home town in Chitwan and went to Jumla to work for the Safe Motherhood Programme at a time when the Maoist conflict was at its most intense.

She was in Khalanga, the Jumla district headquarters when the Maoists launched a massive attack in November 2002. Radha fell in love with Jumla and the entire Karnali region and founded Action Works Nepal, a non-government organisation committed to improving the lives of the people there, among the poorest in Nepal. In 2012, the University of San Diego acknowledged her as a Woman Peacemaker and in the same year, the United Nations Development Programme honoured her with the N-Peace Award for her contribution to peace-building. In 2014, she received the Youth Talent Award from the Government of Nepal in recognition of her role as a humanitarian and social activist. She won the prestigious literary award Madan Puraskar for Khalangama Hamala, the original Nepali version of this book in 2014.