About the author
K. Satchidanandan, perhaps the most widely translated of contemporary Indian poets, has 23 collections of his poetry in 19 languages including English, Irish, Arabic, Chinese, French, German and Italian besides all-important Indian languages. His collected poems in three volumes – about 1400 pages- came out in 2006 and his collected translations from world poetry were published in four volumes – about 1700 pages- in 2012-14. His books of English translations, While I Write: New and Selected Poems (Harper-Collins India) came out in 2011 and Misplaced Objects and Other Poems (Sahitya Akademi, Delhi) in 2014. His New and Selected Poems in English translation, a large volume of about 600 pages, The Missing Rib, is due to appear very soon from Poetrywala, Bombay. Satchidanandan was a Professor of English in Kerala and later moved to Delhi to edit Indian Literature , the organ of the Sahitya Akademi ( The National Academy of Literature in India) and served as its Chief Executive for a decade. Later he was a Language Policy Adviser to the Govt of India, the Director and Professor of Translation Studies at the Indira Gandhi National Open University and the editor of the SAARC journal Beyond Borders and of the South Asian Library of Literature, a book series. All through he has also been a cultural activist working for peace, environment and human and minority rights. His poetry stands against all forms of violence. Satchidanandan writes poetry in Malayalam, and prose in Malayalam and English and has more than 20 collections of poetry besides several books of travel, plays and criticism and translations of poetry from around the world and five books originally written in English on Indian literature. This is besides the 20 -odd books in three languages that he has edited. He has represented India in several Literary Festivals and Book Fairs across the world including those in Delhi, Jaipur, Bombay, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Lahore, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Dubai, Damascus, Berlin, London, Manchester, Liverpool, Wales, New York, Washington, Hay, Paris, Frankfurt, Bonn, Leipzig, Beijing, Shanghai, Rotterdam, Medellin, Havana, Lima, Sarajevo, Vilenica, Madrid, Soria, Segovia, Avila and Moscow. Satchidanandan is a Fellow of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi and has won 32 literary awards and Fellowships including Sahitya Akademi Award, Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award five times, (for poetry, drama, travelogue, translation, criticism), Gangadhar Meher National Award (Orissa) , Kusumagraj National Award ( Maharashtra), NTR National Award ( Andhra Pradesh), Kuvempu National Award ( Karnataka), Kamala Surayya Award ( Dubai),Oman Cultural Centre Award ( Muscat),Kala Award for Total Literary Contribution ( London), K. K. Birla Fellowship for Comparative Literature, Sreekant Verma Fellowship for Translation and the Senior Fellowship from the Govt of India besides Knighthood of the Order of Merit from the Government of Italy and India-Poland Friendship Medal from the Government of Poland. He was on the Ladbroke list of Nobel probables in 2011. A film on him, SummerRain was released in 2007.At present he is a National Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, India.
