BIO Sahitya Akademy Award winning poet Vaidya Nath Mishra ‘Nagarjun’ (11 June, 1911 – 5 November, 1998) is one of the most respected names in contemporary Hindi Literature. He is known as the poet of the people. He wrote in Maithli, Hindi, Sanskrit and Bangla also. Prose, poetry, translations and children’s literature were successfully attempted…
BIO Om Nagar (b.1980) writes in Rajasthani. He was awarded the Youth Prize by the Sahitya Akademi, Bhartiya Gyanpith and Pakhi literary journal and has published 9 books in Hindi- Rajasthani and in translation. BIO Abhay K. is a poet and editor. He has published six collection of poems including The Eight-Eyed Lord of…
BIO Jibanananda Das (17 February 1899 – 22 October 1954) was a prolific Bengali poet, writer, novelist and essayist. Born in 1899 in a Vaidya-Brahmin family in the small district town of Barisal, located in the south of Bangladesh, Das is acknowledged today as one of the prime literary figures of the post-Tagore era in Bengal. According to…
BIO Rabindranath Tagore was born in 1861 and died in 1941. He brought fame to Indian English and Bengali literature through his translation of Gitanjali which won the Nobel Prize and had a preface by WB Yeats. He was a great poet, dramatist, lyricist, fiction writer and essayist. He also illumined the history of the…
BIO Mir Muhammad Taqi “Mir” was one of the most famous Urdu poets in the eighteenth century, and is still regarded today as the khudā-e sukhan (the God of Poetry). As a child, he grew up in Agra, then later migrated to Delhi where he spent most of his life. Mir spent the twilight of his life…
BIO The flourit of the legendary Sanskrit litterateur Kalidasa is approximated to be between 4th and 5th century CE. Kalidasa is considered the greatest poet and playwright in the Sanskrit language. His works are primarily based on Indian myth, into which he weaves magical descriptions of nature. There are many debates surrounding Kalidasa’s life and…
A Note on Literary Translation Women’s Movements are myriad and the more recent Feminist Movement is an offshoot of Women’s Liberation fighting for liberation and equality. These movements not always go to the root of the problems of women-kind at the basic life of women as fair sex but with the problems starting with the…
Vijay Seshadri is the first Asian-American to win a Pulitzer Prize for poetry. In his interview with Life and Legends, he mentions that he was a source of pride for India and among the Indians, and other Asians in America when he won the 2014 poetry Pulitzer for his book, 3 Sections. This interview of Vijay…
Life and Legends pays tribute to internationally famed Hindi Poet Manglaesh Dabral, who lost his battle with COVID-19 on December 9th, 2020 in New Delhi, India. We send our deepest condolences to his family and friends. A memorable interview with Magalesh Dabral for conducted by editor-in-chief Kalpna Singh-Chitnis, first published in Life and Legends on…
Agha Shahid Ali was my closest friend for nearly twenty years, and we spoke on the phone nearly every day, sometimes several times in a day, especially if one of us was writing a new poem, which we would read successive drafts of to each other. Once, when I was house-sitting for the poet W….
Contrary to the metaphorical idiom “The Elephant in the Room,” the presence of an elephant in Indian culture is considered auspicious, and it is welcomed everywhere in the country. An Elephant, in Indian culture symbolizes power, strength and good fortune, as well as wisdom and intellect. From this perspective, Indian literature can be metaphorically compared…
BIO Lalrinkima writes under the pseudonym of Seiji which he accidentally picked up from a typo. He is currently pursuing his Master’s Degree in Economics at the University of Mizoram. He also works as a part-time content writer for Excelsoft company. Besides reading and writing, he loves playing basketball and cooking. He lives in Aizawl, Mizoram,…
