Kunwar Narayan

Life

Born on 19 September 1927, in Faizabad district, Uttar Pradesh Kunwar Narayan passed his M.A. examination in English Literature from Lucknow University in 1951. Married to Bharati Goenka in 1966, he has a son Apurva, born in 1967.

Political leaders Narendra Deva and Acharya Kriplani were key literary influences and he gives formative importance to his first visit to Europe, Russia and China in 1955 and meetings with poets like Nazim Hikmet Ran, Anton Słonimskie and Pablo Neruda. Later, his translations of the French symbolist poets like Mallarmé and Valery, and then of poets like Cavafy and Borges, contributed to his poetic development. His work covers varied genres—poetry, epic poetry, short stories, literary criticism, translations, essays on world cinema, history and Indian classical music, and articles of versatile cultural and human interest. He has been translated nationally and internationally, and his many honours include the Jnanpith Award, Sahitya Akademi Award, 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 Günter Grass, South Africa’s J. M. Coetzee, China’s Gao Xingjian, Syria’s Adonis, Cuba’s Roberto F Retamar, Palestine’s Mahmoud Darwish, Iraq’s Saadi Youssef, France’s Michel Butor and Albania’s Ismail Kadaré).

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

Epic poems

Fiction

Criticism

Translations

Compilations

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

Selected foreign translations

Positions held

Selected international literary activities