Nationality Indian Subject Literature Role Poet | Ethnicity Malayalam Name Anna Mathai | |
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Occupation Poet, Educationalist, Feminist Education Master of Arts In English Literature Books Lifeon My Side of the Street and Other Poems, The Attic of Night | ||
Anna Sujatha Mathai, Recipient of the first Kamala Das Poetry Award
Anna Sujatha Mathai (born May 24, 1934) is a renowned English poet and litterateur from India and has to her credit five books of poetry.
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Anna Sujatha Mathai, Recipient of the first Kamala Das Poetry Award
Biography
Anna Sujatha Mathai was born in Nagpur in the year 1934 to Syrian Christian parents originally from Kerala. Her father, Samuel Mathai, was the Head of the English Dept. at St. Stephen’s College. She grew up in a family where literature, poetry, theatre and the arts were part of the atmosphere. At the age of 14, she was offered the role of Viola in the Shakespeare Society’s production of Twelfth Night. At 16, she joined the English Honours Class at Miranda House, Women's Institution of Delhi University. There she acted in several plays, won the College Prize, and later, the Best Actress Award of The Delhi University. At the age of 21 she got married to a surgeon and on her 21st birthday she was on a ship in the Suez Canal, heading for "the white cliffs of Dover."
She holds a first class master's degree in English Literature from the University of Delhi and Bangalore University and a postgraduate degree in social sciences from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Her mother tongue is Malayalam but her writings are in English. Presently, she is living in New Delhi, India.
Her Work
Anna Sujatha Mathai has five collections of poetry in English. Many of her poems have been translated into several Indian and European languages. Her book "Life - on my side of the Street and other Poems" was selected in the golden jubilee year of the Sahitya Akademi to showcase and anthologize Indian poetry in English by women writers. The author has given readings on Air and has read them at several venues including India International Center, Delhi; The Danish Writer’s Union, Copenhagen; The House of Culture, Stockholm; Lauderdale House, London; The International Poetry Festival, Struga, Macedonia, and Poetry Cafe Covent Garden, London. She was a contributing editor for the prestigious literary journal 2Plus2, based in Laussane, Switzerland. She also taught at the Delhi University and had been involved in Theater too.
Her Books
Anna Sujatha Mathai has written five books of poetry.
William Radice, a renowned translator of the Poems and Short Stories of Ravindranath Tagore and others such as Keki N. Daruwalla praised her for her poetic skills.