Kunwar Narain (born 19 September 1927) is a poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 and a presence in Indian literature

Indian literature

Indian literature refers to the literature produced on the Indian subcontinent until 1947 and in the Republic of India thereafter. The Republic of India has 22 officially recognized languages....

, often regarded as the leading living poet in Hindi

Hindi

Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...

. He has read and traveled widely, written over the last six decades and is among the few intellectuals who combine an international modern sensibility with a grounding in their country’s cultural and imaginative history. Linked to the New Poetry movement, he publishes selectively and is characteristically polite. He read English literature and publishes in Hindi but also plays with English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 and Urdu

Urdu

Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...

. Earlier, he lived in Lucknow

Lucknow

Lucknow is the capital city of Uttar Pradesh in India. Lucknow is the administrative headquarters of Lucknow District and Lucknow Division....

 where his house was a centre of literary meets and classical performances. He now lives in Delhi

Delhi

Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...

 with his wife and son. Influences on him have been diverse, from the Indian epics and Upanishads to Kabir

Kabir

Kabīr was a mystic poet and saint of India, whose writings have greatly influenced the Bhakti movement...

 and Amir Khusro

Amir Khusro

Ab'ul Hasan Yamīn ud-Dīn Khusrow , better known as Amīr Khusrow Dehlawī , was an Indian musician, scholar and poet. He was an iconic figure in the cultural history of the Indian subcontinent...

, history and mythology to Buddhism

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

 and Marxism

Marxism

Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

, Kafka and Cavafy to Khālib and Gandhi.

Life

Born on 19 September 1927, in Faizabad district, Uttar Pradesh Kunwar Narayan passed his M.A.

Master of Arts (postgraduate)

A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...

 examination in English Literature

English literature

English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....

 from Lucknow University in 1951. Married to Bharati Goenka in 1966, he has a son Apurva, born in 1967.

Political leaders Narendra Deva

Narendra Deva

Acharya Narendra Deva was one of the leading theorists of the Congress Socialist Party in India. His democratic socialism renounced violent means as a matter of principle and embraced the satyagraha as a revolutionary tactic....

 and Acharya Kriplani were key literary influences and he gives formative importance to his first visit to Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 and China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 in 1955 and meetings with poets like Nazim Hikmet Ran, Anton Słonimskie and Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean poet, diplomat and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He chose his pen name after Czech poet Jan Neruda....

. Later, his translations of the French symbolist poets like Mallarmé

Stéphane Mallarmé

Stéphane Mallarmé , whose real name was Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism.-Biography:Stéphane...

 and Valery

Valery

The French name Valery [valri] is a given name or surname of Germanic origin Walaric , that has often been confused in modern time with the latin name Valerius, that explains the variant spelling Valéry [valeri]...

, and then of poets like Cavafy and Borges, contributed to his poetic development. His work covers varied genres—poetry, epic poetry

Epic poetry

An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...

, short stories, literary criticism

Literary criticism

Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...

, translations, essays on world cinema

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

, history and Indian classical music

Indian classical music

The origins of Indian classical music can be found in the Vedas, which are the oldest scriptures in the Hindu tradition. Indian classical music has also been significantly influenced by, or syncretised with, Indian folk music and Persian music. The Samaveda, one of the four Vedas, describes music...

, and articles of versatile cultural and human interest. He has been translated nationally and internationally, and his many honours include the Jnanpith Award

Jnanpith Award

The Jnanpith Award is a literary award in India. Along with the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, it is one of the two most prestigious literary honours in the country...

, Sahitya Akademi Award

Sahitya Akademi Award

Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honor in India which Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of outstanding works in one of the following twenty-four major Indian languagesAssamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri,...

, Kabir Samman, Vyasa Samman, Lohia Samman, Shalaka Samman, Warsaw University’s honorary medal and Italy’s Premio Feronia for distinguished international author (a prestigious honour given for the first time to an Indian writer and previously awarded to authors like Germany’s Günther Grass, South Africa’s JM Coetzee, China’s Gao Xingjian

Gao Xingjian

Gao Xingjian is a Chinese-born novelist, playwright, critic, and painter. An émigré to France since 1987, Gao was granted French citizenship in 1997...

, Syria’s Adonis, Cuba’s Roberto F Retamar, Palestine’s Mahmoud Darwish, Iraq’s Saadi Youssef, France’s Michel Butor

Michel Butor

-Life and work:Michel Marie François Butor was born in Mons-en-Barœul. He studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, graduating in 1947. He has taught in Egypt, Manchester, Salonika, the United States, and Geneva...

 and Albania’s Ismail Kadaré

Ismail Kadare

Ismail Kadare is an Albanian writer. He is known for his novels, although he was first noticed for his poetry collections. In the 1960s he focused on short stories until the publication of his first novel, The General of the Dead Army. In 1996 he became a lifetime member of the Academy of Moral...

).

Work

His oeuvre began with Chakravyūh, his first poetry collection published in 1956, a landmark in Hindi literature. About the same time, he co-edited Yug-Chétnā, an avant-garde literary magazine. A little later in 1959, he was one of the poets in Tīsrā Saptak edited by Agyeya. In 1961, his second poetry collection Parivésh: Hum-Tum came. Ātmajayee, published in 1965, a short epic based on the Upanishadic character of Nachiketā, expresses some of the most fundamental metaphysical concerns and is widely recognised as a classic of Hindi literature.

His short story collection Ākāron Ke Ās-Pās came in 1971 and is a lasting example of a poetic mind exploring the genre of fiction. In the poems of Apné Sāmné (1979), contemporary political and social ironies found a more pronounced place. After a long hiatus, his much-awarded collection of poems Koī Dūsrā Nahīn was published in 1993. Āj Aur Āj Sé Pahlé, a collection of literary criticism (1999), Méré Sākshātkār, a collection of interviews (2000) and Sāhitya Ké Kuchh Antar-Vishayak Sandarbh (2003), as also journals like Yug Chétna, Naya Pratik and Chhayanat that he co-edited, and writings on cinema, art and history, reveal yet other aspects of his literary repertoire. In 2002, the poetry collection In Dino was published and, in 2008, his latest work, an epic poem Vājashravā Ké Bahāné, has appeared, which while recalling the contextual memory of Ātmajayī published forty years ago, is a chain of independent island-like poems. A selection of his poems in English translation, No Other World, by his son Apurva has appeared in 2010 from Rupa.

Poetry

• Chakravyūh (Circular Siege), 1956. Radhakrishan, Delhi (first published by Rajkamal Prakashan).
• Tīsrā Saptak (Third Heptad), seven poets, ed. Agyeya, 1959. Bharatiya Jnanpith, Delhi.
• Parivésh: Hum-Tum (Surroundings: Us-You), 1961. Vani Prakashan, Delhi (first published by Bharti Bhandar, Allahabad).
• Apné Sāmné (In Front of Us), 1979. Rajkamal Prakashan, Delhi.
• Koī Dūsrā Nahīn (No One the Other), 1993. Rajkamal Prakashan, Delhi.
• In Dino (These Days), 2002. Rajkamal Prakashan, Delhi.

Epic poems

• Ātmajayī (Self-Conqueror), based on the Upanishadic episode of Nachikétā in Kathopnishad, 1965. Bharatiya Jnanpith, Delhi.
• Vājashravā Ké Bahāné (On Vajashrava’s Pretext), independent poems linked to Ātmajayī’s context, 2008. Bharatiya Jnanpith.

Fiction

• Ākāron Ké Ās-Pās (Near-about Shapes), a collection of short stories, 1973. Radhakrishan Prakashan, Delhi.

Criticism

• Āj Aur Āj Sé Pahlé (Today and Before Today), 1998. Rajkamal Prakashan, Delhi.
• Méré Sākshātkār (My Interviews), interviews given by Kunwar Narain, ed. Vinod Bhardwaj, 1999. Kitabghar Prakashan, Delhi.
• Sāhitya Ké Kuchh Antar-Vishayak Sandarbh (Some Interdisciplinary Contexts of Literature), XIV Samvatsar Lecture, 2003. Sahitya Akademi.

Translations

• Selected poems of and essay on Constantine Cavafy, ‘Tanāv’, 1986 and Jorge-Luis Borges, ‘Tanāv’, 1987.
• Selected poems of Stéphane Mallarmé, Tadeusz Różewicz, Derek Walcott, Zbigniew Herbert, Anna Świrszczyńska, etc.

Compilations

• Kunwar Nārāin: Sansār-I (World: Select writings of Kunwar Narain), ed. Yatindra Mishra, 2002. Vani Prakashan, Delhi.
• Kunwar Nārāin: Upasthiti-II (Presence: Select articles on Kunwar Narain and his writings), ed. Y Mishra, 2002. Vani Prakashan.
• Kunwar Nārāin: Chunī Huī Kavitāyein (Selected Poems), ed. Suresh Salil, 2007. Medha Books, Delhi.
• Kunwar Nārāin: Pratinidhī Kavitāyein (Representative Poems), ed. Purshottam Agarwal, 2008. Rajkamal Prakashan, Delhi.

Poems, stories, essays, criticism, and writings on cinema, music, art and history, have also appeared in journals and anthologies. Works on the poet and translations into national and international languages have been published in journals, anthologies and independent collections.

Awards and recognition

• Hindustani Akademi Award (Atmajayee) 1971,
• Prem Chand Award (Akaron Ke Aas-Pas) 1973,
• Kumaran Asan Award (Apne Samne) 1982,
• Tulsi Award (Apne Samne) 1982,
• Hindi Sansthan Award (distinguished writing in Hindi) 1987,
• Vyas Samman (Koi Doosra Naheen) 1995,
• Bhavani Prasad Misra Award (Koi Doosra Naheen) 1995,
• Shatdal Award (Koi Doosra Naheen) 1995,
• Sahitya Akademi Award (Koi Doosra Naheen and overall literary contribution) 1995,
• Lohia Award (overall contribution to Hindi literature) 2001,
• Kabir Samman (highest all-India poetry award) 2001,
• Honorary D.Litt, of Rajarshi Purushottam Tandan Mukt Vishvavidyalay, Allahabad, 2004,
• Medal of Warsaw University, Poland (overall literary achievement) 2005,
• Shalaka Samman (Hindi Academy’s highest honour), Delhi, 2006,
• Premio Feronia, Italy (distinguished foreign author), 2006,
• Jnanpith Award
  Jnanpith Award
  The Jnanpith Award is a literary award in India. Along with the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, it is one of the two most prestigious literary honours in the country...
  
   (considered as the highest literary award in India), for overall contribution in Hindi literature, 2005
• Padma Bhushan
  Padma Bhushan
  The Padma Bhushan is the third highest civilian award in the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan, but comes before the Padma Shri. It is awarded by the Government of India.-History:...
  
   the third highest civilian award in the Republic of India for 'Literature & Education', 2009
• 'Pune Pandit' Award (Scholar of Pune Award), by the Art & Music Foundation, India for outstanding contribution in Indian literature, 2011

Selected foreign translations

• Modern Hindi Poetry: An Anthology, ed. Vidya N. Misra, 1965, Indiana Univ. Press, Bloomington & London. (English translation by Leonard Nathan & H M Guy)
• Tokyo University Journal, No. 7, Dec. 1972, Hindi Dept., Tokyo Univ. of Foreign Studies, Nishigahara, Kita-ku, Tokyo (Japanese translation by Toshio Tanaka)
• Der Ochsenkarren, Hindilyrik der siebziger und achtziger Jahre, Zusammengestellt von Vishnu Khare & Lothar Lutze, Verlag Wolf Mersch, 1983 (German transl.)
• Kunvar Narayan, Naciketa, A cura di Mariola Offredi, Plural Edizioni, Napoli. Collezione di Poesia I Cristalli, 1989, (Italian translation of Atmajayee)
• The Golden Waist Chain: Modern Hindi Short Stories, ed. Sara Rai, 1990, Penguin. (English translation by Sara Rai)
• TriQuarterly 77, Winter 1989/90, ed. Reginald Gibbons, 1990, Northwestern University, US (English translation by Vinay Dharwadker)
• Periplus: Poetry in Translation, eds. Daniel Weissbort & Arvind K. Mehrotra, 1993, Oxford Univ. Press. (English translations by Daniel Weissbort & the poet)
• The Penguin New Writing in India, eds. Aditya Behl & David Nicholls, 1994, Penguin India, First published by Chicago Review (Vol. 38, Nos1 & 2), 1992
• Survival, eds. Daniel Weissbort & Girdhar Rathi. Sahitya Akademi, India, 1994 (English translations by Daniel Weissbort & the poet)
• The Oxford Anthology of Modern Indian Poetry, eds. Vinay Dharwadker & A.K. Ramanujan, 1994, Oxford University Press (English translations)
• Yatra 2: Writings from The Indian Subcontinent, General Ed.: Alok Bhalla, Eds. Nirmal Verma & U R Ananthamurthy, 1994, Indus (English trans., Alok Bhalla)
• Living Literature: A Trilingual Documentation of Indo-German Literary Exchange, eds. Barbara Lotz and Vishnu Khare (German translations)
• Gestures: Poetry from SAARC Countries, Edited by K. Satchidanandan, 1996 (Reprint 2001), Sahitya Akademi, India (English)
• An Anthology of Modern Hindi Poetry, ed. Kailash Vajpeyi, 1998, Rupa & Co., India (English translations)
• Dilli Mein Kavita, ed. Kailash Vajpeyi, translated into Russian by Varyam Singh, 1999, Sahitya Kala Parishad, Delhi (Russian translations)
• Poeti Hindi: Antologia del Novecento, A cura di Mariola Offredi, Casta Diva, Roma. 2000. Poesia, Collana diretta da Enrico D’Angelo (Italian translations)
• Kunvar Narayan, Nessuno è altro, A cura di Roberta Sequi, Casta Diva, Roma. 2001. (Italian translation of Koee Doosra Nahin)
• Beyond Borders: An Anthology of SAARC Poetry, eds. Ashok Vajpeyi
  Ashok Vajpeyi
  Ashok Vajpeyi is an Indian poet in Hindi, essayist, literary-cultural critic, apart from being a noted cultural administrator, and a former civil servant. Presently he is the Chairman, Lalit Kala Akademi India's National Academy of Arts, Ministry of Culture, Govt of India, since 2008...
  
   & Ajeet Cour, 2002, Academy of Fine Arts and Literature & Rainbow Publishers.
• Ze współczesnej poezji hindi, Przegląd Orientalistyczny, vol. 202-203, no. 3-4, Warszawa, 2002, translated by Danuta Stasik. (Polish translations)
• Hindi: Handpicked Fictions, Edited and translated by Sara Rai, 2003, Katha, Delhi. (English translations)
• New Poetry in Hindi (Nayi Kavita): An anthology edited, translated and introduced by Lucy Rosenstein, 2003, Permanent Black, Delhi. (English translations)
• Cracow Indological Studies Vol. 6, ed. Renaty Czekalskiej, Jagiellonian Univ., Kraków, 2005. (Polish translations, Renata Czekalska & Agnieszka Kuckiewicz-Fraś)
• Kunwar Narain, Varco di ombre, a cura di Tullia Baldassarri Höger von Högersthal, edizione Mura, 2006 (Italian translation of selected poems)
• Ik zag de stad, Moderne Hindi-poëzie, Vertaald en ingeleid door Lodewijk Brunt & Dick Plukker, Stichting India Instituut, Amsterdam, 2006 (Dutch translation)
• Teaching on India in Central and Eastern Europe, eds. Danuta Stasik & Anna Trynkowska, Warsaw, 2007 (Polish translations by Danuta Stasik)
• Kunwar Narain, Przez Słowa, Antologia pod redakcją Renaty Czekalskiej i Agnieeszki Kuczkiewicz-Fraś, Księgarnia Akademicka, Kraków, 2007 (Polish translation)
• Kunwar Narain. No Other World: Selected Poems, translated by Apurva Narain, Rupa & Co., India, 2008. (English translation)

Positions held

• Co-editor, Yug-Chetna (1956–61), Naya Prateek (1974–78) and Chhayanat (1976–78)
• Ex-member, General Council, UP Hindi Sansthan, and Hindi Advisory Board, Government of India
• Vice-Chairman, UP Sangeet Natak Akademi, Lucknow (1976–78)
• Chairman, Bhartendu Natya Kendra (Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts
  Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts
  Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts is a theatre training institute in Lucknow, India...
  
  ), Lucknow (1977–79)
• Ex-member, Kendriya Audan Samiti, Dept. of Secondary & Higher Education, Central Hindi Directorate, Government of India
• Founding member, Vimala Devi Foundation, Ayodhya
• Member, Advisory Board, Central Institute of Hindi, Agra, Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India
• Member, Board of Trustees and Executive Board, National Book Trust of India

Selected international literary activities

• Visits to Europe, Russia and China; meetings with Nazim Hikmet, Anton Slonimiskie and Pablo Neruda, 1955
• Seminars & readings at Stockholm, Gothenburg and Lund Universities, Sweden, 1987
• Lectures on Mythology and Modern Hindi Poetry, Venice University; Poetry readings in the UK, Italy & US, 1994
• Lectures and poetry readings in Nepal; Stay in Cambridge; Poetry Reading in London, 1998
• Literary conferences and poetry readings in Warsaw and Jagiellonian Universities, Poland, 1999 and 2001
• Poetry readings and release of Italian translation of Koee Doosra Naheen at Arenzano (Genova), Italy, 2001
• Poetry readings and participation in the SAARC conference, Lahore, Pakistan, 2003
• Guest of Honour at the 50th Anniversary of the Department of Indological Studies, Warsaw University, Poland, 2005
• Poetry readings at the International Festival ‘Mediterranea’ and release of Italian collection of poems, Rome, 2006