Herta Müller: Nobel prize in Literature 2009

Herta Müller was born on August 17, 1953 in the German-speaking town Nitzkydorf in Banat, Romania. Her parents were members of the German-speaking minority in Romania. Her father had served in the Waffen SS during World War II. Many German Romanians were deported to the Soviet Union in 1945, including Müller’s mother who spent five years in a work camp in present-day Ukraine. Many years later, in Atemschaukel (2009), Müller was to depict the exile of the German Romanians in the Soviet Union. From 1973 to 1976, Müller studied German and Romanian literature at the university in Timişoara (Temeswar). During this period, she was associated with Aktionsgruppe Banat, a circle of young German-speaking authors who, in opposition to Ceauşescu’s dictatorship, sought freedom of speech. After completing her studies, she worked as a translator at a machine factory from 1977 to 1979. She was dismissed when she refused to be an informant for the secret police. After her dismissal, she was harassed by Securitate.

Müller made her debut with the collection of short stories Niederungen (1982), which was censored in Romania. Two years later, she published the uncensored version in Germany and, in the same year, Drückender Tango in Romania. In these two works, Müller depicts life in a small, German-speaking village and the corruption, intolerance and repression to be found there. The Romanian national press was very critical of these works while, outside of Romania, the German press received them very positively. Because Müller had publicly criticized the dictatorship in Romania, she was prohibited from publishing in her own country. In 1987, Müller emigrated together with her husband, author Richard Wagner.

The novels Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger (1992), Herztier (1994; The Land of Green Plums, 1996) and Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet (1997; The Appointment, 2001) give, with chiselled details, a portrait of daily life in a stagnated dictatorship. Müller has given guest lectures at universities, colleges and other venues in Paderborn, Warwick, Hamburg, Swansea, Gainsville (Florida), Kassel, Göttingen, Tübingen and Zürich among other places. She lives in Berlin. Since 1995 she is a member of Deutsche für Sprache und Dichtung, in Darmstadt.

Influences

Although Müller has not publicly spoken at length on specific people or books that have influenced her on a literary level, she has attributed her roots to other sources. The most prominent of these would be her university studies in German and Romanian literature. When comparing the two languages, she notes that a simple concept such as a falling star can be interpreted so differently. "We’re not only speaking about different words, but about different worlds. [For example] Romanians see a falling star and say that someone has died, with the Germans you make a wish when you see the falling star." Müller also went on to say that Romanian folk music holds a special place in her heart. "When I first heard Maria Tanase she sounded incredible to me, it was for the first time that I really felt what folklore meant. Romanian folk music is connected to existence in a very meaningful way." ^[15]

Another strong source of influence would have been Müller’s husband, Richard Wagner. Their lives held remarkable parallels: both grew up in Romania as members of the Banat Swabian ethnic group and were enrolled in German and Romanian literary studies at Timişoara University. Upon graduating, they worked as German language teachers, and were members of Aktionsgruppe Banat, a literary society that fought for freedom of speech. Like his wife, Wagner is also a published novelist and essayist.

Müller’s involvement with Aktionsgruppe Banat would have also influenced the boldness with which she wrote, despite knowing about the threats and trouble she would receive from the Romanian secret police. Additionally, while her books are fictional, she did base them on real life happenings and people. One of the characters in her 1996 novel, The Land of Green Plums was based on a close friend from Aktionsgruppe Banat, and it was written after the deaths of two friends in which Müller suspected the secret police’s involvement. ^[16]

Works in German

Niederungen. – Bukarest : Kriterion-Verlag, 1982 ; Berlin : Rotbuch-Verlag, 1984

Drückender Tango : Erzählungen. – Bukarest : Kriterion-Verlag, 1984 ; Reinbek bei Hamburg : Rowohlt, 1996

Der Mensch ist ein groβer Fasan auf der Welt : Roman. – Berlin : Rotbuch-Verlag, 1986

Barfüβiger Februar : Prosa. – Berlin : Rotbuch-Verlag, 1987

Reisende auf einem Bein. – Berlin : Rotbuch-Verlag, 1989

Der Teufel sitzt im Spiegel. – Berlin : Rotbuch-Verlag, 1991

Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger : Roman. – Reinbek bei Hamburg : Rowohlt, 1992

Eine warme Kartoffel ist ein warmes Bett. – Hamburg : Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1992

Der Wächter nimmt seinen Kamm : vom Weggehen und Ausscheren. – Reinbek bei Hamburg : Rowohlt, 1993

Herztier : Roman. – Reinbek bei Hamburg : Rowohlt, 1994

Hunger und Seide : Essays. – Reinbek bei Hamburg : Rowohlt, 1995

In der Falle. – Göttingen : Wallstein-Verlag, 1996

Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet. – Reinbek bei Hamburg : Rowohlt, 1997

Der fremde Blick oder Das Leben ist ein Furz in der Laterne. – Göttingen : Wallstein-Verlag, 1999

Im Haarknoten wohnt eine Dame. – Reinbek bei Hamburg : Rowohlt, 2000

Heimat ist das, was gesprochen wird. – Blieskastel : Gollenstein, 2001

Der König verneigt sich und tötet. – München : Hanser, 2003

Die blassen Herren mit den Mokkatassen. – München : Hanser, 2005

Atemschaukel : Roman. – München : Hanser, 2009

Works in English

The Passport / translated by Martin Chalmers. – London : Serpent’s Tail, 1989. – Translation of Der Mensch ist ein großer Fasan auf der Welt

The Land of Green Plums / translated by Michael Hofmann. – New York : Metropolitan Books, 1996. – Translation of Herztier

Traveling on One Leg / translated from the German by Valentina Glajar and André Lefevere. – Evanston, Ill. : Northwestern University Press, 1998. – Translation of Reisende auf einem Bein

Nadirs / translated and with an afterword by Sieglinde Lug. – Lincoln, NE : University of Nebraska Press, 1999. – Translation of Niederungen

The Appointment / translated by Michael Hulse and Philip Boehm. – New York : Metropolitan Books, 2001. – Translation of Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet

Works in French

L’homme est un grand faisan sur terre / traduit de l’allemand par Nicole Bary. – Paris : Maren Sell, 1988. – Traduction de: Der Mensch ist ein groβer Fasan auf der Welt

Le renard était déjà le chasseur / traduit de l’allemand par Claire de Oliveira. – Paris : Seuil, 1997. – Traduction de: Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger

La convocation / traduit de l’allemand par Claire de Oliveira. – Paris : Métailié, 2001. – Traduction de: Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet

 
Works in Spanish

En tierras bajas / traducción del alemán de Juan José del Solar. – Madrid : Siruela, 1990. – Traducción de: Niederungen

El hombre es un gran faisán en el mundo / traducción del alemán de Juan José del Solar. – Madrid : Siruela, 1992. – Traducción de: Der Mensch ist ein groβer Fasan auf der Welt

La piel del zorro / traducción de Juan José del Solar. – Barcelona : Plaza & Janés, 1996. – Traducción de: Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger

La bestia del corazón / traducción de Bettina Blanch Tyroller. – Barcelona : Mondadori, 1997. – Traducción de: Herztier

Works in Swedish

Flackland / översättning av Susanne Widén-Swartz. – Stockholm : Alba, 1985. – Originaltitel: Niederungen

Människan är en stor fasan på jorden : en berättelse / översättning av Karin Löfdahl. – Stockholm : Alba, 1987. – Originaltitel: Der Mensch ist ein groβer Fasan auf der Welt

Barfota februari : berättelser / översättning av Karin Löfdahl. – Stockholm : Alba, 1989. – Originaltitel: Barfüβiger Februar

Resande på ett ben / översättning av Karin Löfdahl. – Stockholm : Alba, 1991. – Originaltitel: Reisende auf einem Bein

Redan då var räven jägare / översättning av Karin Löfdahl. – Stockholm : Bonnier Alba, 1994. – Originaltitel: Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger

Hjärtdjur / översättning av Karin Löfdahl. – Stockholm : Bonnier Alba, 1996. – Originaltitel: Herztier

Kungen bugar och dödar / översättning: Karin Löfdahl. – Stockholm : Wahlström & Widstrand, 2005 – Originaltitel: Der König verneigt sich und tötet

Idag hade jag helst inte velat träffa mig själv / översättning: Karin Löfdahl. – Stockholm : Wahlström & Widstrand, 2007 – Originaltitel: Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet

Selected Criticism

Die erfundene Wahrnehmung : Annäherung an Herta Müller / Norbert Otto Eke (Hg.). – Paderborn : Igel, 1991

Der Druck der Erfahrung treibt die Sprache in die Dichtung : Bildlichkeit in Texten Herta Müllers / Ralph Köhnen (Hrsg.). – Frankfurt am Main : Lang, 1997

Herta Müller / edited by Brigid Haines. – Cardiff : University of Wales, 1998

Predoiu, Grazziella, Faszination und Provokation bei Herta Müller : eine thematische und motivische Auseinandersetzung. – Frankfurt am Main : Lang, 2000

Dascalu, Bogdan Mihai, Held und Welt in Herta Müllers Erzählungen. – Hamburg : Kovac, 2004

Bozzi, Paola, Der fremde Blick : zum Werk Herta Müllers. – Würzburg : Königshausen & Neumann, 2005

Patrut, Iulia-Karin, Schwarze Schwester – Teufelsjunge : Ethnizität und Geschlecht bei Paul Celan und Herta Müller. – Köln : Böhlau, 2006

 

AWARDS

• 1981 Adam-Müller-Guttenbrunn Sponsored Prize the Temeswar Literature Circle
• 1984 Aspekte Literature Prize
• 1985 Rauris Literature Prize
• 1985 Encouragement Prize of the Literature Award of Bremen
• 1987 Ricarda-Huch Prize of Darmstadt
• 1989 Marieluise-Fleißer Prize of Ingolstadt
• 1989 German Language Prize, together with Gerhardt Csejka, Helmuth Frauendorfer, Klaus Hensel, Johann Lippet, Werner Söllner, William Totok, Richard Wagner
• 1990 Roswitha Medal of Knowledge of Bad Gandersheim
• 1991 Kranichsteiner Literature Prize
• 1993 Critical Prize for Literature
• 1994 Kleist Prize
• 1995 Aristeion Prize
• 1995/96 City-writer of Frankfurt-Bergen-Enkheim
• 1997 Literature Prize of Graz
• 1998 Ida-Dehmel Literature Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for Herztier / The Land of Green Plums
• 2001 Cicero Speaker Prize
• 2002 Carl-Zuckmayer-Medaille of Rhineland-Palatinate
• 2003 Joseph-Breitbach Prize (together with Christoph Meckel and Harald Weinrich)
• 2004 Literature Prize of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung
• 2005 Berlin Literature Prize
• 2006 Würth Prize for European Literature und Walter-Hasenclever Literature Prize
• 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature

Filed under: Author of the week , Herta Müller: Literature Nobel

Stephenie Meyer

    

Stephenie Meyer’s life changed dramatically on June 2, 2003. The stay-at-home mother of three young sons woke up from a dream featuring seemingly real characters that she could not get out of her head.

"Though I had a million things to do, I stayed in bed, thinking about the dream. Unwillingly, I eventually got up and did the immediate necessities, and then put everything that I possibly could on the back burner and sat down at the computer to write—something I hadn’t done in so long that I wondered why I was bothering."

Meyer invented the plot during the day through swim lessons and potty training, and wrote it out late at night when the house was quiet. Three months later she finished her first novel, Twilight. With encouragement from her older sister (the only other person who knew she had written a book), Meyer submitted her manuscript to various literary agencies. Twilight was picked out of a slush pile at Writer’s House and eventually made its way to the publishing company Little, Brown where everyone fell immediately in love with the gripping, star-crossed lovers.

(Visit your library to read all these books !!!!)

Twilight was one of 2005’s most talked about novels and within weeks of its release the book debuted at #5 on The New York Times bestseller list. Among its many accolades, Twilight was named an "ALA Top Ten Books for Young Adults," an Amazon.com "Best Book of the Decade…So Far", and a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year.

The highly-anticipated sequel, New Moon, was released in September 2006, and spent more than 25 weeks at the #1 position on The New York Times bestseller list.

In 2007, Eclipse literally landed around the world and fans made the Twilight Saga a worldwide phenomenon! With midnight parties and vampire-themed proms the enthusiasm for the series continued to grow.

On May 6, 2008, Little, Brown and Company released The Host, Meyer’s highly-anticipated novel for adults which debuted at #1 on The New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. The Host still remains a staple on the bestseller lists more than a year after its debut.

On August 2, 2008, the final book in the Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn was released at 12:01 midnight. Stephenie made another appearance on "Good Morning America" and was featured in many national media outlets, including Entertainment Weekly, Newsweek, People Magazine and Variety. Stephenie headlined the Breaking Dawn Concert Series with Justin Furstenfeld (lead singer of Blue October) to celebrate the release in four major markets across the US. Breaking Dawn sold 1.3 million copies in its first 24 hours.

The Twilight movie, directed by Catherine Hardwicke and starring Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, was released on November 21, 2008. Twilight debuted at #1 at the box office with $70 million, making it the highest grossing opening weekend for a female director.

Stephenie lives in Arizona with her husband and three sons.

Here is a list of interviews with Stephenie Meyer, and links to the text, audio, or video.

Bio courtesy:http://www.stepheniemeyer.com

Author website

Filed under: Author of the week , Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, new moon, eclipse, breaking dawn, the host

Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Virswami, OM, FBA, (Telugu:సర్వేపల్లి రాధాకృష్ణ) (5 September 1888 – 17 April 1975), was an Indian philosopher and statesman.

Radhakrishnan was one of India’s most acclaimed scholars of comparative religion and philosophy. He is considered through his efforts to have built a bridge between East and West by having shown the philosophical systems of each tradition to be comprehensible within the terms of the other. He wrote authoritative exegeses of India’s religious and philosophical literature for the English speaking world. His academic appointments included the King George V Chair of Mental and Moral Science at the University of Calcutta (1921-?) and Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at Oxford University (1936-1952).

He was the first Vice President of India (1952-1962), and the second President of India (1962-1967). Among the many honours he received were a British knighthood (1931) and the Bharat Ratna (1954). His birthday is celebrated in India as Teacher’s Day on 5 September.

Early life and education

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was born into a middle class telugu family at Tirutani in Tamil Nadu state, a town in Madras Presidency, British India, 64 km to the northwest of Madras (now Chennai). His early years were spent in Tirutani and Tirupati. His father was a subordinate revenue official in the service of a local Zamindar (landlord). His primary education was at Primary Board High School at Tirutani. In 1896 he was shifted to the Hermansburg Evangelical Lutheral Mission School at Tirupati.

Radhakrishnan went through most of his education on scholarships. He joined the Voorhee’s College in Vellore but switched to the Madras Christian College at the age of 17. He graduated with a Master’s degree in Philosophy from the Madras Christian College in 1906, being one of its most distinguished alumni.Radhakrishnan wrote his thesis for the M.A. degree on "The Ethics of the Vedanta and its Metaphysical Presuppositions".He was afraid that his M.A. thesis, "The Ethics of the Vedanta" would offend his philosophy professor, Dr. A.G. Hogg. Instead, Dr. Hogg commended Radhakrishnan on doing an excellent job. Radhakrishnan’s M.A. thesis was published when he was only 20. Philosophy was not his personal choice, but seemingly an accident. A cousin of his who had graduated from the same college handed over to him the textbooks in philosophy. As Radhakrishnan was poor at this juncture of his life, this incident decided his future career.Later on he felt deep interest in his subject and wrote many acclaimed works on philosophy, both eastern and western.Marriage

Radhakrishnan was married to Sivakamu, a distant cousin, in 1904 at the age of 16. His bride was then only 10 years old. The marriage was a traditional Indian arranged marriage. They had five daughters and a son, Sarvepalli Gopal, who later went on to a notable career as a historian.

In 1914, in a strange twist of fate, Radhakrishnan met Srinivasa Ramanujan, the mathematical genius. Srinivasa was leaving for Cambridge for studies and had come to seek Radhakrishnan’s blessings because a goddess came in his dream and told him to do so before undertaking the trip. The two never met again.

In 1918, Radhakrishnan was selected as Professor of Philosophy by the University of Mysore. By that time, he had written many articles for journals of repute like The Quest, Journal of Philosophy and the International Journal of Ethics. He completed his first book "The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore." He believed Tagore’s philosophy to be the "genuine manifestation of the Indian spirit." Radhakrishnan’s second book, "The Reign of Religion in Contemporary Philosophy" was published in 1920.

In 1921, he was appointed as a professor in philosophy to occupy the King George V Chair of Mental and Moral Science at the University of Calcutta. Radhakrishnan represented the University of Calcutta at the Congress of the Universities of the British Empire in June 1926 and the International Congress of Philosophy at Harvard University in September 1926. In 1929, Radhakrishnan was invited to take the post vacated by Principal J. Estlin Carpenter in Manchester College, Oxford. This gave him the opportunity to lecture to the students of the University of Oxford on Comparative Religion. For his services to education, he was knighted by the British Government in 1931, but did not use the title in personal life preferring instead his academic title ‘Doctor’. He was the Vice-Chancellor of Andhra University from 1931 to 1936. In 1936, Radhakrishnan was named Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at the University of Oxford, and was elected a Fellow of All Souls College. In 1939, Pt. Madan Mohan Malaviya invited him to become Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University. He continued as its Vice-Chancellor till January, 1948. When India became independent in 1947, Radhakrishnan represented India at UNESCO, and was later Ambassador of India to the Soviet Union, from 1949 to 1952. He was also elected to the Constituent Assembly of India.

Radhakrishnan was elected as the first Vice President of India in 1952.In 1956, his wife Sivakamamma died. They were married for over 51 years.He was elected as the second President of India (1962-1967). When he became President, some of his students and friends requested him to allow them to celebrate his birthday, 5 September. He replied,

"Instead of celebrating my birthday, it would be my proud privilege if 5 September is observed as Teachers’ Day."

His birthday has since been celebrated as Teachers’ Day in India.Radhakrishnan along with Ghanshyam Das Birla and a few other Social Workers in pre independence era formed Krishnarpan Charity Trust.

Philosophy

Radhakrishnan argued that Western philosophers, despite all claims to objectivity, were biased by theological influences of their own culture.He wrote books on Indian philosophy according to Western academic standards, and made Indian philosophy worthy of serious consideration in the West. In his book "Idealist View of Life" he has made a powerful case for the importance of intuitive thinking as opposed to purely intellectual forms of thought. He is well known for his commentaries on the Prasthana Trayi namely, the Bhagavadgita, the Upanishads and the Brahma Sutra.

He was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy in 1938. He was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1954, and the Order of Merit in 1963. He received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 1961, and the Templeton Prize in 1975, a few months before his death. He donated the entire Templeton Prize amount to Oxford University. The Oxford University instituted the Radhakrishnan Scholarships in 1989 which was later renamed the Radhakrishna Chevening Scholarships in his memory.

For recent biographies, see Robert Minor’s: "Radhakrishnan, a religious biography" or Sarvepalli Gopal’s:"Radhakrishnan;a biography".

“
It is not God that is worshipped but the authority that claims to speak in His name. Sin becomes disobedience to authority not violation of integrity.

Works

• The Hindu View of Life
• An Idealist View of Life
• Eastern Religions and Western Thought
• Religion and Society
• Recovery of Faith
• A Source Book in Indian Philosophy, Princeton University Press

Courtesy: wikipedia

 

Filed under: Author of the week , Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

Meg Cabot: The Princess and her diaries

Meg Cabot was born on February 1, 1967, during the Chinese astrological year of the Fire Horse, a notoriously unlucky sign. Fortunately she grew up in Bloomington, Indiana, where few people were aware of the stigma of being a fire horse — at least until Meg became a teenager, when she flunked freshman Algebra twice, then decided to cut her own bangs. After six years as an undergrad at Indiana University, Meg moved to New York City (in the middle of a sanitation worker strike) to pursue a career as an illustrator, at which she failed miserably, forcing her to turn to her favorite hobby–writing novels–for emotional succor. She worked various jobs to pay the rent, including a decade-long stint as the assistant manager of a 700 bed freshmen dormitory at NYU, a position she still occasionally misses.

She is now the author of nearly fifty books for both adults and teens, selling fifteen million copies worldwide, many of which have been #1 New York Times bestsellers, most notably The Princess Diaries series, which is currently being published in over 38 countries, and was made into two hit movies by Disney. In addition, Meg wrote the Mediator and 1-800-Where-R-You? series (on which the television series, Missing, was based), two All-American Girl books, Teen Idol, Avalon High, How to Be Popular, Pants on Fire, Jinx, a series of novels written entirely in email format (Boy Next Door, Boy Meets Girl, and Every Boy’s Got One), a mystery series (Size 12 Is Not Fat/ Size 14 Is Not Fat Either/Big Boned), and a chick-lit series called Queen of Babble.

Meg is now writing a new middle grade series called Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls, as well as an edgy new YA series, Airhead, both of which debut in Spring of 2008. Her new paranormal series, Abandon, debuts in Summer of 2009.

Meg currently divides her time between Key West, Indiana, and New York City with a primary cat (one-eyed Henrietta), various back-up cats, and her husband, who doesn’t know he married a fire horse. Please don’t tell him.

New Book

Read

Excerpt

Friday, April 28, Gifted and Talented

Okay. They’ve descended into madness.

I guess some of them (namely, Lana, Trisha, Shameeka, and Tina) didn’t have that far to go, anyway.

But I think they’ve taken the word senioritis to new extremes.

So Tina and I were out in the hallway just before lunch when we ran into Lana, Trisha, and Shameeka, and Tina yelled, over the din of everyone passing by, “Did you guys hear? Michael is back! And his robotic arm is a huge success! And he’s a millionaire!”

Lana and Trisha, as one might predict, both let out shrieks that I swear could have burst the glass in all the emergency fire pulls nearby. Shameeka was more subdued, but even she got a crazed look in her eyes.

Then, when we got into the jet line to get our yogurts and salads (well, those guys. They’re all trying to lose five pounds before the prom. I was getting a tofurkey burger), Tina started telling them about Michael’s donating a CardioArm to the Columbia University Medical Center, and Lana went, “Oh my God, when is that, tomorrow? We are so going.”

“Uh,” I said, my heart sliding up into my throat. “No, we aren’t.”

“Seriously,” Trisha said, agreeing with me (I could have kissed her). “I’ve got a tanning appointment. I’m totally building up a golden glow for prom next weekend. I’m wearing white, you know.”

“Whatever,” Lana said, picking out diet sodas for all of us. “You can tan after.”

“But we’ve got Mia’s birthday party Monday,” Trisha said. “There’re going to be celebrities there. I don’t want to look pasty in front of celebrities.”

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Filed under: Author of the week , Meg Cabot, Princess Diaries

Nissim Ezekiel

Nissim Ezekiel (14 December 1924 – 9 January 2004) was a poet, playwright, editor and art critic. He was a foundational figure in postcolonial India’s literary history, specifically for Indian writing in English.

Early life

Ezekiel was born on 14 December 1924 in Mumbai (Maharashtra). His father, Moses Ezekiel, was a professor of botany at Wilson College, and his mother was principal of her own school. The Ezekiels belonged to Mumbai’s Jewish community, known as the ‘Bene Israel‘ . In 1947, Ezekiel earned an MA in Literature from Wilson College, University of Mumbai. In 1947-48, he taught English literature and published literary articles. After dabbling in radical politics for a while, he sailed to London in November 1948. He studied philosophy at Birk beck College. After a three and a half years stay, Ezekiel worked his way home as a deck-scrubber aboard a ship carrying arms to Indochina.

He married Daisy Jacob in 1952. In the same year, Fortune Press (London) published his first collection of poetry, A Time to Change. He joined The Illustrated Weekly of India as an assistant editor in 1953 and stayed there for two years. Soon after his return from London, he published his second book of verse Sixty Poems. For the next 10 years, he also worked as a broadcaster on arts and literature for All India Radio.

Career

Ezekiel’s first book, A Time to Change, appeared in 1952. He published another volume of poems, The Unfinished Man in 1960. After working as an advertising copywriter and general manager of a picture frame company (1954-59), he co-founded the literary monthly Imprint, in 1961. He became art critic of The Times of India (1964-66) and edited Poetry India (1966-67). From 1961 to 1972, he headed the English department of Mithibai College, Mumbai. The Exact Name, his fifth book of poetry was published in 1965. During this period he held short-term tenure as visiting professor at University of Leeds (1964) and University of Chicago (1967). In 1967, while in America, he experimented with hallucinogenic drugs, probably as a means to expand his writing skills. He finally stopped using them in 1972. In 1969, Writers Workshop, Calcutta published his The Three Plays .A year later, he presented an art series of ten programs for Mumbai television.

On the invitation of the US government, he embarked on a long tour of the US in November, 1974. In 1976, he translated Indira Sant’s poetry from Marathi, in collaboration with Vrinda Nabar, and co-edited a fiction and poetry anthology. His poem The Night Of The Scorpion is used as study material in Indian and British schools. He wrote a poem based on instruction boards in his favourite Irani café.

Books by Nissim Ezekiel

Poetry

• 1952: Time To Change
• 1953: Sixty Poems^[2]
• 1959: The Third^[2]
• 1960: The Unfinished Man^[2]
• 1965: The Exact Name^[2]
• 1974: Snakeskin and Other Poems, translations of the Marathi poet Indira Sant^[2]
• 1976: Hymns in Darkness^[2]
• 1982: Latter-Day Psalms^[2]

• 1989: Collected Poems 1952-88^[2]

Other

• 1969: The Three Plays

Editor

• 1965: An Emerson Reader^[2]
• 1969: A Martin Luther King Reader^[2]
• 1990: Another India, anthology of fiction and poetry^[2]

Some of his well-known poems

• Night of the Scorpion
• The Professor
• Case Study
• Poster Prayers
• The Patriot
• Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher
• Latter-day Psalms

Courtesy: Wikipedia

 

Nissim Ezekiel, who has been called "the father of post-independence Indian verse in English",  is the foremost among the Indian-English poets. He is the pioneer of modernity in Indian-English poetry. The Age of Ezekiel in Indian-English poetry started with his creative oeuvre. He was also an art-critic and playwright. In 1952, Fortune press (London) published his first collection of poetry, A Time to Change. He published his book The Unfinished Man in 1960. He co-founded the literary monthly Imprint, in 1961. He functioned as art critic of The Times of India (1964-66) and edited Poetry India (1966-67). From 1961 to 1972, he headed the English Department of Mithibai College, Mumbai. The Exact Name, his fifth book of poetry, was published in 1965. During this period, he had short tenures as visiting professor at University of Leeds (1964) and University of Chicago (1967).  In 1969, Writers Workshop, Calcutta published his The Three Plays. A year later, he presented an art series of ten programs for Mumbai television. On the invitation of the US Government, he went on a month-long tour to the US in November, 1974. In 1975 he went as a Cultural Award Visitor to Australia. In 1976, he translated poetry from Marathi, and co-edited a fiction and poetry anthology. Ezekiel received the Sahitya Akademi award in 1983 and the Padma Shri in 1988. He was Professor of English at University of Mumbai during the 1990s. He functioned as the Secretary of the Indian branch of the international writers’ organization PEN. After a prolonged battle with Alzheimer’s disease, Nissim Ezekiel died in Mumbai, on 9 January 2004. His works include A Time To Change (1952), Sixty Poems (1953), The Third (1959), The Unfinished Man (1960), The Exact Name (1965), The Three Plays (1969) and Hymns in Darkness (1976).  When he began his creative course of life in the late 1940s, his adoption of formal English was controversial, given its association with colonialism. Yet he "naturalised the language to the Indian situation, and breathed life into the Indian English poetic tradition." Ezekiel’s poetry describes love, loneliness, lust, creativity and political pomposity, human foibles and the "kindred clamour" of urban dissonance. Over the course of his creative years, his attitude changed, too. The young man, "who shopped around for dreams", demanded truth and lambasted corruption. By the 1970s, he accepted "the ordinariness of most events"; laughed at "lofty expectations totally deflated"; and acknowledged that "The darkness has its secrets / Which light does not know." After 1965, he even began embracing India’s English vernacular, and teased its idiosyncrasies in Poster Poems and in The Professor.  He acted as a mentor to many younger poets —  Dom Moraes, Adil Jussawalla, Gieve Patel and several others. In the last few years of his life, he was deeply involved in helping younger poets, especially those based at Mumbai, his advice being forthright, but seldom blunt.

Courtesy: http://www.geocities.com/indian_poets/indian_english.html

Filed under: Author of the week , Nissim Ezekiel

End of a chapter on theatre

Eminent playwright Habib Tanvir, one of the greatest stalwarts of the Indian stage, was known for blending theatre, folk art and poetry in his works, leaving an indelible mark on the minds of the viewers.

A multi-faceted personality, Habib Ahmed Khan adopted the pen-name ‘Tanvir’ when he began writing poetry at an early age. Born on September 1, 1923 in Raipur, Tanvir did his matriculation from Laurie Municipal High School, Raipur, and completed his B.A. from Morris College, Nagpur, in 1944. After pursuing his Master’s for a year at Aligarh Muslim University, he moved to Bombay and joined All India Radio in Bombay as a producer in 1945.

While in Bombay, he wrote songs for Hindi films and even acted in a few. He also joined the Progressive Writers’ Association and became an integral part of the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) as an actor. Later, when most prominent IPTA members were imprisoned for opposing British rule, he was asked to take over the organisation.

The playwright won the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1969, Padma Shri in 1983, Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship in 1996 and the Padma Bhushan in 2002. Tanvir was also a member of the Rajya Sabha from 1972 to 1978. His play Charandas Chor that was first produced in 1975 got him the Fringe Firsts Award at the Edinburgh International Drama Festival in 1982. In 1959, he founded the Naya Theatre in Bhopal and it is set to complete 50 years this year.

In 1954, he moved to Delhi and worked with Qudsia Zaidi’s Hindustani Theatre and also worked with the Children’s Theatre and authored numerous plays.

It was during this period that he met actor-director Moneeka Mishra, whom he later married. Later the same year, he produced his first significant play, Agra Bazar, based on the work and time of the plebeian 18th Century Urdu poet Nazir Akbarabadi of Mirza Ghalib’s generation. In this play he used local residents and folk artistes from Okhla village in Delhi with students of Jamia Millia Islamia creating a palette never seen before in Indian theatre, a play not staged in a confined space, rather a bazaar, a market place. This experience with non-trained actors and folk artistes later blossomed with his work with folk artistes of Chhattisgarh.

In 1955, Habib moved to England where he trained in Acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) and in Direction at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School (1956). For the next two years, he travelled through Europe watching various theatre activities. One of the highlights of this period was his eight-month stay in Berlin in 1956, during which he got to see several plays of Bertolt Brecht, produced by Berliner Ensemble, just a few months after Brecht’s death. This proved to be a lasting influence on him, as in the coming years he also used local idioms in his plays to express trans-cultural tales and ideologies.

This gave rise to a “theatre of roots” marked by an utter simplicity in style, presentation and technique yet remaining eloquent and powerfully experiential. A deeply inspired Habib returned to India in 1958 and took directing full-time. He produced Mitti Ki Gaadi, based on Shudraka’s Sanskrit work, Mrichchakatika, and it became his first important production in Chhattisgarhi.

There was no turning back from there. It led to the foundation of Naya Theatre in Bhopal along with his wife. In his exploratory phase, 1970-73, Tanvir broke free from one more theatre restriction. He no longer made the folk artistes with whom he had been performing all his plays speak Hindi, and instead switched to Chhattisgarhi, a dialect they were more accustomed to. Later, he even started experimenting with “Pandavani”, a folk singing style from the region and temple rituals, making his plays stand out amidst the backdrop of plays which were still using traditional theatre techniques like blocking movements or fixing lights on paper. During his career, Habib acted in over nine feature films, including Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi (1982).

He passed away on 08th June 2009

Courtesy:The Hindu

Filed under: Author of the week , Habib Tanvir

Alice Munro wins 2009 Man Booker International Prize

Canadian short story writer is third writer to win prize

Alice Munro  is the winner of the third Man Booker International Prize.

The Man Booker International Prize, worth £60,000 to the winner, is awarded once every two years to a living author for a body of work that has contributed to an achievement in fiction on the world stage. It was first awarded to Ismail Kadaré in 2005 and then to Chinua Achebe in 2007.

Best known for her short stories, Munro is one of Canada’s most celebrated writers. On receiving the news of her win, she said, ‘I am totally amazed and delighted.’

The judging panel for the Man Booker International Prize 2009 is: Jane Smiley, writer; Amit Chaudhuri, writer, academic and musician; and writer, film script writer and essayist, Andrey Kurkov. The panel made the following comment on the winner:

‘Alice Munro is mostly known as a short story writer and yet she brings as much depth, wisdom and precision to every story as most novelists bring to a lifetime of novels.  To read Alice Munro is to learn something every time that you never thought of before.’

Her latest collection of short stories, Too Much Happiness, will be published in October 2009. Alice Munro will receive the prize of £60,000 and a trophy at the Award Ceremony on Thursday 25 June at Trinity College, Dublin.

Read more about the judging process of the Man Booker Internatonal Prize in an exclusive piece by Fiammetta Rocco, administrator of the prize, in our Perspective section.

For more information on the 2009 Man Booker International Prize winner please see the press release.

Courtesy: http://www.themanbookerprize.com

 

Alice Ann Munro

(née Laidlaw; born 10 July 1931) is a Canadian short-story writer, winner of the Man Booker International Prize for her lifetime body of work, and three-time winner of Canada’s Governor General’s Award for fiction. Generally regarded to be one of the world’s foremost writers of fiction,^{[citation needed]} her stories focus on the human condition and relationships through the lens of daily life. While most of Munro’s fiction is set in Southwestern Ontario and the Canadian Pacific Northwest, her reputation as a short-story writer is international. Her "accessible, moving stories" explore human complexities in a seemingly effortless style.^[1] Munro’s writing has established her as "one of our greatest contemporary writers of fiction," or, as Cynthia Ozick put it, "our Chekhov."^[2]

Biography

Alice Munro was born in the town of Wingham, Ontario into a family of fox and poultry farmers. Her father was Robert Eric Laidlaw and her mother, a school teacher, was Anne Clarke Laidlaw (née Chamney). She began writing as a teenager and published her first story, "The Dimensions of a Shadow," while a student at the University of Western Ontario in 1950. During this period she worked as a waitress, tobacco picker and library clerk. In 1951, she left the university, in which she had been majoring in English since 1949, to marry James Munro and move to Vancouver, British Columbia. Her daughters Sheila, Catherine, and Jenny were born in 1953, 1955, and 1957 respectively; Catherine died 15 hours after birth. In 1963, the Munros moved to Victoria where they opened Munro’s Books. In 1966, their daughter Andrea was born.

Alice Munro’s first collection of stories, Dance of the Happy Shades (1968), was highly acclaimed and won that year’s Governor General’s Award, Canada’s highest literary prize. This success was followed by Lives of Girls and Women (1971), a collection of interlinked stories that was published as a novel.

Alice and James Munro were divorced in 1972. She returned to Ontario to become Writer-in-Residence at the University of Western Ontario. In 1976 she married Gerald Fremlin, a geographer. The couple moved to a farm outside Clinton, Ontario. They have since moved from the farm to a house in the town of Clinton.

In 1978, Munro’s collection of interlinked stories, Who Do You Think You Are?, was published (titled The Beggar Maid: Stories of Flo and Rose in the United States). This book earned Munro the Governor General’s Literary Award for a second time. From 1979 to 1982, she toured Australia, China and Scandinavia. In 1980 Munro held the position of Writer-in-Residence at both the University of British Columbia and the University of Queensland. Through the 1980s and 1990s, Munro published a short-story collection about once every four years to increasing acclaim, winning both national and international awards.

In 2002, her daughter Sheila Munro published a childhood memoir, Lives of Mothers and Daughters: Growing Up With Alice Munro.

Alice Munro’s stories frequently appear in publications such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Grand Street, Mademoiselle, and The Paris Review. In interviews to promote her 2006 collection The View from Castle Rock, Munro suggested that she would, perhaps, not publish any further collections. She has since recanted and published further work, and her newest collection, tentatively titled Too Much Happiness, is scheduled for publication in 2009.^[3]

Her story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" has been adapted for the screen and directed by Sarah Polley as the film Away from Her, starring Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent. It successfully debuted at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. Polley’s adaptation was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, but lost to No Country for Old Men.

Works

• Dance of the Happy Shades – 1968 (winner of the 1968 Governor General’s Award for Fiction)
• Lives of Girls and Women – 1971
• Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You – 1974
• Who Do You Think You Are? – 1978 (winner of the 1978 Governor General’s Award for Fiction)
• The Moons of Jupiter – 1982 (nominated for a Governor General’s Award)
• The Progress of Love – 1986 (winner of the 1986 Governor General’s Award for Fiction)
• Friend of My Youth – 1990 (winner of the Trillium Book Award)
• Open Secrets – 1994 (nominated for a Governor General’s Award)
• Selected Stories – 1996
• The Love of a Good Woman – 1998 (winner of the 1998 Giller Prize)
• Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage – 2001
• No Love Lost – 2003
• Vintage Munro – 2004
• Runaway – 2004 (winner of the 2004 Giller Prize) ISBN 1-4000-4281-X
• The View from Castle Rock – 2006
• Too Much Happiness – 2009

Book jackets

   

 

Awards

• Governor General’s Award for English-language Fiction (Canada) – 1968, 1978, 1986
• Canadian Booksellers Award for Lives Of Girls And Women (1971)
• Marian Engel Award (1986)
• Shortlisted for the annual (UK) Booker Prize for Fiction (now the ‘Man Booker Prize’) (1980) for The Beggar Maid
• WH Smith Literary Award (1995, UK) for Open Secrets
• National Book Critics Circle Award (1998, U.S.) For The Love of a Good Woman
• PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction (1997)
• Rea Award for the Short Story (2001) given to a living American or Canadian author.
• Libris Award
• Canada-Australia Literary Prize
• Commonwealth Writers Prize Regional Award for Canada and the Caribbean.
• Trillium Book Award (1990)
• WH Smith Literary Award (1995)
• Giller Prize (1998 and 2004)
• O. Henry Award for Continuing Achievement in Short Fiction in the U.S. (2004) For Passion first published in The New Yorker, March 22, 2004 and What Do You Want To Know For Published in The American Scholar (2008)
• Man Booker International Prize (2009, UK) ^[8].

Honors

• Royal Society of Canada’s Lorne Pierce Medal (1993)
• Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1992)
• Medal of Honor for Literature from the U.S. National Arts Club (2005) ^[9]

Other

• The Love of a Good Woman was also selected as a candidate in the CBC’s 2004 edition of Canada Reads, in which it was advocated by opera singer Measha Brueggergosman.

Text: Courtesy: Wikipedia

 

More about Alice Munro

Read an interesting article by  DAVID LASKIN

Alice Munro’s Vancouver

Photo: Dan Lamont for The New York Times

Kitsilano Beach, in the Vancouver neighborhood where Alice Munro lived in the early 1950’s, provided the setting for some of her fiction, including "Cortes Island."

 

Published: June 11, 2006

IN Alice Munro’s Vancouver nobody eats sushi. Nobody jogs along the seawall or browses Granville Street galleries or shops for organic herbs at the Granville Island market. Ms. Munro, the 74-year-old Canadian whom the novelist Jonathan Franzen dubbed "the best fiction writer now working in North America," set a handful of her marvelous short stories in the damp British Columbian metropolis, and the urban geography is so exact you can practically map the city off her fictions. But though the addresses match, the vibe is unrecognizable. Young but hopelessly uncool, lustful without being sexy, dowdy, white, blind to its own staggering beauty, Ms. Munro’s Vancouver is an outpost where new wives blink through the rain and wonder when their real lives are going to begin.

Read the full article here-travel.nytimes.com/…/travel/11footsteps.html

More…

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/21/books/author-munro.html?_r=1

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/bwriting/stories/s1527695.htm  (Interview with Radio National 25/12/2005)

Filed under: Author of the week , Alice Munro, Booker prize, Booker prize 2009, Man Booker Prize 2009

Kamala Surayya

Kamala Surayya (born Kamala Das on March 31, 1934-May 31, 2009), is a well-known Indian writer who writes in English as well as Malayalam, her native language. She is considered to be one of the outstanding Indian poets writing in English, although her popularity in Kerala is based chiefly on her short stories and autobiography. Much of her writing in Malayalam came under the pen name Madhavikkutty. She was born in Malabar in Kerala, India. She is the daughter of V. M. Nair, a former managing editor of the widely-circulated Malayalam daily Mathrubhumi, and Nalappatt Balamani Amma, a renowned Malayali poetess. Kamala Das is probably the first Hindu woman to openly and honestly talk about sexual desires of Indian woman, which made her an iconoclast of her generation.^[1]

Biography

Kamala Das spent her childhood between Calcutta, where her father was employed as a senior officer in the Walford Transport Company that sold Bentleys and Rolls Royce, and the Nalappatt ancestral home at Ponnayoorkulam in south Malabar region. Her husband often played a fatherly role for both Kamala and her sons. Because of the great age difference between Kamala and her husband, he often encouraged her to associate with people of her own age.^[2]

Like her mother, Kamala Das also excelled in writing. Her love of poetry began at an early age through the influence of her great uncle, Nalappatt Narayana Menon, a prominent writer. However, she did not start writing professionally till she was married and became a mother. When Kamala wished to begin writing, her husband supported her decision to augment the family’s income. Being the housewife, she could not use the morning-till-night schedule enjoyed by her great uncle. She would wait until nightfall after her family had gone to sleep and would write until morning: “There was only the kitchen table where I would cut vegetables, and after all the plates and things were cleared, I would sit there and start typing” (“Warrior” interview). This rigorous schedule took its toll upon her health, but she views her illness optimistically. It gave her more time at home, and thus, more time to write.^[3]

She is famous for her many Malayalam short stories as well as many poems written in English. This Keralite is recognized as one of the foremost poetesses of India. She is also a syndicated columnist. She has moved away from poetry because she claims that “poetry does not sell in this country (India)”, but fortunately her forthright columns do. Her columns sound off on everything from women’s issues and child care to politics.

Her eldest son M D Nalapat is married to a princess from the Travancore Royal House. He holds the UNESCO Peace Chair and Professor of geopolitics at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education. He was the former resident editor of Times of India. Her second son Chinem is placed in Bangalore.

Kamala Surayya died on 31st May 2009 in Pune  and  buried on 02 June 2009 at Jum-a-Masjid Palayam, Thiruvananthapuram.

Writings

English

Her first book, Summer In Calcutta was a promising start. She wrote chiefly of love, its betrayal, and the consequent anguish, and Indian readers in 1965 responded sympathetically to her guileless, guiltless frankness with regard to sexual matters. Ms. Das abandoned the certainties offered by an archaic, and somewhat sterile, aestheticism for an independence of mind and body at a time when Indian women poets were still expected to write about teenage girlie fantasies of eternal, bloodless, unrequited love.

Musing of a lonely heart is a common theme in her poems. It seeks love with never ending passion. Lust, greed and hunger never satiate and finally the mind becomes an old playhouse with all its lights put out. For Das, poetry (or love?) is “The April sun squeezed like an orange juice”, the heat permeates into the reader’s mind. When she is moving to a new city, “Sadness becomes a silent stone in the river’s unmoving core”. She bid farewell to “the shadows behind the windowpane, the rain, the yellow moon, the crowd and the sea”. This sensitivity is the strength of her poetry.

At 42, she published her autobiography, My Story, baring the secrets of her heart. It creates a lot of interest and controversies though not for any literary value.She herself later made it clear that it WAS after all a work of fiction and should not be read that literally.She alleges that many translators have not done justice to the original and it is one of the reason that complicated the whole matter. The book was translated into many foreign languages—about 15.

Malayalam

Kamala Das, better known as Madhavikutty is one of the foremost short story writers in Malayalam. In any listing, she figures among the top 5 writers, even after considering the personal choices and socio-cultural background of the readers. She writes, with dexterity, the story of poor old servant in Punnayoorkulam or the sexual disposition of upper middle class women living near a metropolitan city or in the middle of the ghetto.

Her writing style is economical and the use of language is very precise. Her widely acclaimed stories include Pakshiyude Manam, Neypayasam, Thanuppu, and Chandana Marangal. She wrote a few novels, among which Neermathalam Pootha Kalam stands out, which was received favourably by the reading public as well as the critics. It recreates the nostalgia of an old ancestral home with it adjacent snake shrine. It is often said that even her casual talks falls in the genre of short stories. Such is her creative genius that even after succumbing to several unwanted controversies, she remains a widely popular figure.

Awards and other recognitions

Kamala Das has received many awards for her literary contribution. Some of them are

• Asian Poetry Prize
• Kent Award for English Writing from Asian Countries
• Asan World Prize
• Ezhuthachan Award
• Sahitya Academy Award
• Vayalar Award
• Kerala Sahitya Academy Award

She has traveled extensively to read poetry to Germany’s Essen, Bonn and Duisburg universities, Adelaide Writer’s Festival (Adelaide, Australia), Frankfurt Book Fair, University of Kingston, Jamaica, Singapore, and South Bank Festival (London), Concordia University (Montreal, Canada), Columbia University (New York), Qatar, Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi, etc. Her works are available in French, Spanish, Russian, German and Japanese.

She has also held positions as Vice chairperson in Kerala Sahitya Academy, chairperson in Kerala forestry Board, President of Kerala Children Film Society, Orient editor of Poet magazine^[4] and Poetry editor of Illustrated Weekly of India^{ISSN 0019-2430}

Conversion to Islam

Born in a conservative Hindu Nair (Nallappattu) family having Royal anscestry, she embraced Islam in 1999 at the age of 65 and assumed the name Kamala Suraiya. Like the themes of her stories, conversion too, kicked up much heat and dust in the social and literary circles.^[5]

Her statements like “I’m converting Krishna into Allah and making him the Prophet after naming him Mohammed. If you go to Guruvayur now Krishna will not be there he will be with me” infuriated many conservative Hindus. They cannot digest when some one who has written

“

Krishna, I am melting,
Melting, melting
Nothing remains
But you

”

Starts writing,

“

Ya Allah
I perceive the Prophet’s features, as
yet unrevealed, on my beloved’s
mien…

”

Her serious readers observed the same undercurrents lying beneath both lines, this time more lively.

She was also active in politics in India, and has launched a national political party known as the Lok Seva Party, to concentrate on humanitarian work as well as to provide asylum to orphaned mothers and promote secularism. In 1984, she contested election to enter parliament, but lost.

Bibliography

English

• 1964: The Sirens (Asian Poetry Prize winner)
• 1965: Summer in Calcutta (poetry; Kent’s Award winner)
• 1967: The Descendants (poetry)
• 1973: The Old Playhouse and Other Poems (poetry)
• 1976: My Story (autobiography)
• 1977: Alphabet of Lust (novel)
• 1985: The Anamalai Poems (poetry)
• 1992: Padmavati the Harlot and Other Stories (collection of short stories)
• 1996: Only the Soul Knows How to Sing (poetry)
• 2001: yaa Allah (collection of poems) published by [IPH]

middle age[poetry]

Malayalam

• 1964: Pakshiyude Manam (short stories)
• 1966: Naricheerukal Parakkumbol (short stories)
• 1968: Thanuppu (short story, Sahitya Academi award)
• 1987: Balyakala Smaranakal (Childhood Memories)
• 1989: Varshangalkku Mumbu (Years Before)
• 1990: Palayan (novel)
• 1991: Neypayasam (short story)
• 1992: Dayarikkurippukal (novel)
• 1994: Neermathalam Pootha Kalam (novel, Vayalar Award winner)
• 1996: Chekkerunna Pakshikal (short stories)
• 1998: Nashtapetta Neelambari (short stories)
• 2005: Chandana Marangal (Novel)
• 2005: Madhavikkuttiyude Unmakkadhakal (short stories)2x
• 2005: Vandikkalakal (novel)

References

1. ^ rediff.com: The Rediff Interview/Kamala Suraiya
2. ^ K e r a l a . c o m – God’s own country Keralam India-Celebrities
3. ^ http://magnamags.com/magna_savvy/node/521
4. ^ Love and longing
5. ^ The Hindu : Magazine / Personality : Still a rebel writer

Courtesy: Wikipedia

An Introduction by Kamala Das

Poem

An Introduction
Kamala Das

I don’t know politics but I know the names
Of those in power, and can repeat them like
Days of week, or names of months, beginning with Nehru.
I amIndian, very brown, born inMalabar,
I speak three languages, write in
Two, dream in one.
Don’t write in English, they said, English is
Not your mother-tongue. Why not leave
Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins,
Every one of you? Why not let me speak in
Any language I like? The language I speak,
Becomes mine, its distortions, its queernesses
All mine, mine alone.
It is half English, halfIndian, funny perhaps, but it is honest,
It is as human as I am human, don’t
You see? It voices my joys, my longings, my
Hopes, and it is useful to me as cawing
Is to crows or roaring to the lions, it
Is human speech, the speech of the mind that is
Here and not there, a mind that sees and hears and
Is aware. Not the deaf, blind speech
Of trees in storm or of monsoon clouds or of rain or the
Incoherent mutterings of the blazing
Funeral pyre. I was child, and later they
Told me I grew, for I became tall, my limbs
Swelled and one or two places sprouted hair.
WhenI asked for love, not knowing what else to ask
For, he drew a youth of sixteen into the
Bedroom and closed the door, He did not beat me
But my sad woman-body felt so beaten.
The weight of my breasts and womb crushed me.
I shrank Pitifully.
Then … I wore a shirt and my
Brother’s trousers, cut my hair short and ignored
My womanliness. Dress in sarees, be girl
Be wife, they said. Be embroiderer, be cook,
Be a quarreller with servants. Fit in. Oh,
Belong, cried the categorizers. Don’t sit
On walls or peep in through our lace-draped windows.
Be Amy, or be Kamala. Or, better
Still, be Madhavikutty. It is time to
Choose a name, a role. Don’t play pretending games.
Don’t play at schizophrenia or be a
Nympho. Don’t cry embarrassingly loud when
Jilted in love … I met a man, loved him. Call
Him not by any name, he is every man
Who wants. a woman, just as I am every
Woman who seeks love. In him . . . the hungry haste
Of rivers, in me . . . the oceans’ tireless
Waiting. Who are you, I ask each and everyone,
The answer is, it is I. Anywhere and,
Everywhere, I see the one who calls himself I
In this world, he is tightly packed like the
Sword in its sheath. It is I who drink lonely
Drinks at twelve, midnight, in hotels of strange towns,
It is I who laugh, it is I who make love
And then, feel shame, it is I who lie dying
With a rattle in my throat. I am sinner,
I am saint. I am the beloved and the
Betrayed. I have no joys that are not yours, no
Aches which are not yours. I too call myself I.

Videos

Filed under: Author of the week , Kamala Das, Kamala Surayya, Madhavikkutty

K. Satchidanandan

One of Kerala’s leading writers, K. Satchidanandan (b.1946) is regarded as one of the pioneers of the New Poetry in Malayalam. A writer and critic of national repute, he is currently the Secretary of the Sahitya Akademi, India’s national academy of letters.

Satchidanandan’s poetry is often seen as a microcosm of the larger trends in modern Malayalam literature. In its early stages, it was shaped by the modernism of the sixties characterised by a quest for individual identity while negotiating the totalising pressures of an urban mass culture, revealed in the work of Ayyappa Paniker, Akkitham, N.N. Kakkad and Madhavan Ayyappath. In the seventies, a more radical political spirit pervaded his work and that of his contemporaries, with the growth of the new left in India and exposure to voices like Mayakovsky, Neruda, Brecht, Eluard, Cesar Vallejo, Senghor, Nazim Hikmet, David Diop and Aime Cesaire. Since the eighties, there has been a growing exploration of regional cultural identity, as well as a concern with the spiritual quest.
Satchidanandan did his Masters in English from the Unviersity of Kerala and his doctorate in post-structuralist literary theory from the University of Calicut. In 1992, after twenty-five years of teaching English (first as lecturer, then as professor) at Christ College, Kerala, he was invited to join the Sahitya Akademi as the editor of the literary journal, Indian Literature. In 1996, he became Secretary of the Akademi. A prolific poet, he has published nineteen collections of poetry since his first book, Anchu Sooryan in 1970. He has four collections of poetry in English translation and has translated over sixty Indian poets, as well as several European, Latin American, African and Asian poets into Malayalam. A sensitive and astute critic and editor, he has received the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award four times (for poetry, drama, travel writing and criticism), among numerous honours and fellowships.
In a foreword to Satchidanandan’s book, Imperfect and Other New Poems, Dr P.P Raveendran (Professor, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala) writes: “It is easy enough to see in Satchidanandan’s changes a replication in miniature form of the general movement of Malayalam poetry since the sixties . . . However, one should refrain from pressing the comparison too hard. For, as Walter Benjamin has suggested in the case of Kafka, there are two ways of missing the essential point about Satchidanandan’s poetry. One is what can be called a ‘materialisaion’ of the verse by which is meant the critical tendency to attribute a wholly materialistic interpretation to it . . . The other obviously is to ‘spiritualise’ the work, whereby the poems are treated as articulations of the perpetual quest of a spiritually restless mind in a culturally inept world. Both approaches are misleading in as much as they ignore the vitally creative, utopian element that has existed in Satchidanandan’s poetry right from its early days . . . Materiality in Satchidanandan is not the obverse of spirituality . . . On the contrary, it allows the poet the perception of transcendental truths latent in the material world. It emboldens him to extol the quotidian, the everyday . . ., even as it places him in the tradition of an international fraternity of poets, ranging from his native Ezhuthachan and Asan to Lorca and Neruda from outside his culture.”
The poems included in this edition (translated by the poet) will offer readers a glimpse into a poetic sensibility that combines craft with compassion, a rigorous aesthetics with a searching self-reflexive politics. There is a capacity to infuse the uninflected line with a sudden lyrical cadence, to attempt diverse modes “from the pithily ironic to the imagistic”. This is poetry that is unafraid to ponder the vast existential questions of the death of love and the end of the world, and that is equally unapologetic about dwelling on a nostalgic impressionistic landscape of ripe cornfields and childhood rain. And when it affirms sanity in lunacy, poetry in a stammer, it is not as a tired platitude about the meek inheriting the earth. It is, instead, a genuine artistic insight, a discovery arrived at through the intuitive process of poetry rather than the cerebral logic of ideology.

by Arundhathi Subramaniam

Bibliography

In Malayalam:
Anchu Sooryan (Five Suns) 1971.
Atmagita (The Song of the Self) 1974.
Kavita (Poetry) 1977, 1982, 1984.
Indian Sketchukal (Indian Sketches) 1978.
Ezhuthachan Ezhutumbol (When the Poet Writes) 1979, 1985, 1987, 1989.
Peedana Kalam (Times of Torment) 1981, 1989.
Venal Mazha (The Summer Rain) 1982.
Randu Deergha Kavyangal (Two Long Poems) 1983.
Satchidandandante Kavithakal 1962-82 (Poems) 1962-82, 1983, 1987.
Socrateesum Kozhiyum (Socrates and the Cock) 1984.
Ivanekkoodi (Him, too) 1987, 1989, 1990, 1995, 1997.
Veedumattam (Changing House) 1988.
Kayattam (The Ascent) 1990.
Kavibuddhan (The Poet as Buddha) 1992.
Ente Satchidanandan Kavitakal (Selected Poems). Ed. Balachandran Chullikad, 1993.
Desatanam (Going Places) 1994, 1995.
Malayalam 1996, 1998, 2003.
Apoornam (Imperfect) 1998.
Theranjedutha Kavithakal (Selected Poems) 1999.
Sambhashanathinu Oru Sramam (An Attempt to Converse) 2000.
Vikku (Stammer) 2002.
Sakshyangal (Witness) 2004.

In English
Summer Rain: Three Decades of Poetry, ed. RD Yuyutsu. Nirala Publishers, New Delhi, 1995.
How to go to the Tao Temple. Har-Anand Publications, 1998.Imperfect and Other New Poems. Olive Publications, Calicut, Kerala, 2000.So Many Births: Three Decades of Poetry. Konarak Publishers Pvt Ltd, Delhi, 2001.

Websites featuring Satchidanandan
The Little Magazine
Essay entitled ‘Between Saints and Secularists’ by K. Satchidanandan in ‘The Little Magazine’; Vol II, Issue 3 – ‘Belonging’
The South Asian Literary Recordings Project
K. Satchidanandan, Malayalam Writer: The South Asian Literary Recordings Project (Library of Congress) (Bio-note and readings)
RAHA: World Independent Writers Home
‘Poetry is a dream for emancipation’: An Interview with K. Satchidanandan by Sunil K. Poolani
The Week
“Controversy: The BJP tries to tame a stubborn Sahitya Akademi”; Article by Nistula Hebbar on Satchidanandan’s poetry on Gujarat having irked the BJP in The Week (February 16, 2003)
STANDARDS – ‘How Spring Arrived This Year’
K. Satchidanandan’s ‘How Spring Arrived This Year’ (Poem) in STANDARDS (non-profit cyber-journal of the University of Boulder, Colorado)
STANDARDS – ‘My Body, My City’
K. Satchidanandan’s ‘My Body, My City’ (Poem) in STANDARDS (non-profit cyber-journal of the University of Boulder, Colorado)

Modernism and Beyond
An interview with K. Satchidanandan by Makarand Paranjape.
Imagined Communities: Collective Aspirations in Contemporary Indian Poetry
Essay by K. Satchidanandan.

Courtesy:

Poetry International Web

Meet the Author at his  Blog

Filed under: Author of the week , malayalam, poet, satchidanandan

Upamanyu Chatterjee

Upamanyu Chatterjee (born 1959) is an Indian author and administrator, notable for his work set in the milieu of the Indian Administrative Service, especially his novel English August.

Born in Patna, Bihar, Chatterjee was educated at St. Xavier’s School and St. Stephen’s College, in Delhi. He joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1983.

Chatterjee has written a handful of short stories of which “The Assassination of Indira Gandhi” and “Watching Them” are particularly noteworthy. His best-selling novel, English, August : An Indian story (subsequently made into a major film), was published in 1988 and has since been reprinted several times. A review in Punch described the book as “Beautifully written … English, August is a marvelously intelligent and entertaining novel, and especially for anyone curious about modern India”. The novel follows Agastya Sen – a young westernized Indian civil servant whose imagination is dominated by women, literature and soft drugs. This vivid account of “real India” by the young officer posted to the small provincial town of Madna is “a funny, wryly observed account of Agastya Sen’s year in the sticks”, as described by a reviewer in The Observer.

His second novel, The Last Burden, appeared in 1993. This novel recreates life in an Indian family at the end of the twentieth century. The Mammaries of the Welfare State was published at the end of 2000 as a sequel to English, August. His latest novel, Weight Loss, a dark comedy, was published in 2006.

Anjana Sharma equates Upamanyu’s vision of humanity with W.B. Yeats. She writes, “Eighty years apart, cultures, civilisations, even craft and temperament apart, Yeats and Chatterjee share an identical vision of a de-centered, de-natured world.” Dr. Mukul Dikshit opines that Chatterjee has, for the first time, focussed on a “new class” of Westernised Urban Indians that was hitherto ignored in the Regional as well as the English Fiction of India. He declares that Chatterjee’s imagination is as fertile as Kafka’s; his tragic sense is as keen as Camus’s; his understanding of the absurd-comic (farce) in life is at par with Milan Kundera and Saul Bellow.

Bibliography

English, August : An Indian story

The Last Burden

The Mammaries of the Welfare State

Weight Loss

Courtesy: Wikipedia

Filed under: Author of the week , Upamanyu Chatterjee