Core Team
HEMANT DIVATE
Hemant Divate (1967) is a Marathi poet, editor, publisher and translator and poetry activist. He is the author of seven poetry collections in Marathi. Poetrywala has recently published his Struggles with Imagined Gods and Other Poems (in English translation) and Paranoia (in the original Marathi). He has a book each in Spanish, Irish, Arabic, German and Estonian apart from five in English. His poems have also been translated into 30 international languages.
He is the founder-editor of the prestigious Marathi little magazine Abhidhanantar, which saw uninterrupted publication for 16 years.
Abhidhanantar has been credited for providing a solid platform to new poets and for enriching the post-nineties Marathi literary scene.
His publishing house, Paperwall Publishing, has published (under its Poetrywala imprint) more than 150 poetry collections.
He has won several prominent awards, including the Maharashtra Government’s Kavi Keshavsut Award, Bharatiya Bhasha Parishad Award (Kolkata, India), Maharashtra Foundation Award (USA) and Aksharrang Lokmat Award. Hemant has presented his poetry at many national and international poetry and literature festivals in Europe, Latin America and Asia.
Hemant lives in Mumbai.
Email: poetrywala@gmail.com
Website: www.paperwall.in
Smruti Divate
Smruti Divate (1972) is a publisher and an advertising consultant. She was the founder and publisher of a Marathi little magazine Abhidha and then Abhidhanantar for nearly 16 years. Abhidhanantar has been credited to give a fantastic platform to new poets and has enriched the post-nineties Marathi literary scene with amazing fresh talent and great poetry.
She is the co-founder of Paperwall Media & Publishing Pvt. Ltd. under whose imprints- Poetrywala, Paperwall and Poetry Primero have published several path-breaking poets in Marathi, English and English translations from various Indian as well as international languages.
She has been instrumental in launching the Poetrywala International festival and the Mumbai Poetry Festival which is considered as one of the best poetry festivals organised in India. Smruti was the festival director of the first Mumbai Poetry festival. She hosted Poetrywala Foundations’ first online dialogue series with Indian and Welsh poets along with series editor Sampurna Chattarji. Smruti is currently working on her new initiative Incredible Hands and her new children’s imprint IMLI.
She works and lives in Mumbai.
Email: smruti.divate@hotmail.com Website: www.paperwall.in
Sampurna Chattarji
SAMPURNA CHATTARJI is a writer, translator, editor and teacher with twenty books to her credit. These include her short story collection about Bombay/Mumbai, Dirty Love (Penguin, 2013) and three novels—Rupture (2009), Land of the Well (2012) and Ela: The Girl Who Entered the Unknown (2014). She has ten poetry titles, the latest being the collaborative work Elsewhere Where Else (Poetrywala, 2018) and Space Gulliver: Chronicles of an Alien (HarperCollins, 2020). Her work as an anthologist includes Sweeping the Front Yard (2010), featuring women poets writing in English, Malayalam, Telugu and Urdu; and Future Library (2022), a bold and lively selection of poetry and prose in English and translation, ranging from Kalidasa and Andal to contemporary Indian voices from all over the world. Sampurna’s translation of Sukumar Ray’s poetry and prose—titled Wordygurdyboom!—is a Puffin Classic. After Death Comes Water (HarperCollins, 2021) is her translation of Joy Goswami’s prose poems, lauded as a recreation of the Bangla originals in “a living voice, as inventive and vivid as the English of Joyce”. She was poetry editor for The Indian Quarterly from 2017-2021, and currently teaches writing to design students at IIT, Bombay.
SAMPURNA CHATTARJI (born 1970, Dessie, Ethiopia) is a writer, translator and editor. Poetry Editor for The Indian Quarterly from 2017-2021, she is on the Editorial Committee of The Portside Review (currently guest-editing the India issue for December); the Review Committee of The Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English; and part of the newly-instituted public charitable trust Poetrywala Foundation. She was the Paris Writer in Residence with the American University of Paris and the University of Kent Paris School in 2019; and was one of the three English-language judges for Wales Book of the Year 202o. Her work as an anthologist includes Sweeping the Front Yard (2010), which features women poets writing in English, Malayalam, Telugu and Urdu; and Future Library: Contemporary Indian Writing (July 2022 from Red Hen Press, USA), (2022), a bold and lively selection of poetry and prose in English and translation, ranging from Kalidasa and Andal to contemporary Indian voices from all over the world. She was poetry editor for The Indian Quarterly from 2017-2021, and currently teaches writing to design students at IIT, Bombay.
Her ten poetry titles include Space Gulliver: Chronicles of an Alien, which she wrote during her Charles Wallace India Trust (CWIT) Writing Residency at the University of Kent, Canterbury. First published by HarperCollins in 2015, Space Gulliver was reissued in 2020 as part of the special keepsake editions ‘Poetry 10’ series that presented poetry as “medicine, magic and more”. Aditi Angiras (co-editor of The World That Belongs to Us: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from South Asia) wrote in The Book Review, “In a time where the word ‘alien’ has acquired difficult meaning again, where different is dangerous, Chattarji’s poems become relevant in newer ways.”
Over & Under Ground in Mumbai & Paris is the result of Sampurna’s collaboration with poet Karthika Naïr, hailed by Jeet Thayil as “Elegiac, unsettling and gorgeous – a tale of two cities, two poets, and an urgent epistolary exchange”; while Elsewhere Where Else/ Lle Arall Ble Arall, co-authored with Welsh poet, Eurig Salisbury, is the result of a Poetry Connections project organized by Literature Across Frontiers to mark the 70th anniversary of India’s independence. Sampurna’s translation into English of the renowned Bengali poet Joy Goswami – Selected Poems (Harper Perennial, 2014, 2018) – was shortlisted for the inaugural Khushwant Singh Memorial Prize for Poetry and won him the first Tata Literature Live! Poet Laureate Award in 2014. Her translation of Sukumar Ray’s poetry and prose – Wordygurdyboom! – is a Puffin Classic; and her translation of Joy Goswami’s prose poems After Death Comes Water (HarperCollins, 2021) has been lauded by Jeremey Noel-Tod (editor of The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem: From Baudelaire to Anne Carson) as a recreation of the Bangla originals in “a living voice, as inventive and vivid as the English of Joyce”.
Recent anthology appearances include The Penguin Book of Indian Poets edited by Jeet Thayil (Penguin Random House, April 2022); Singing in the Dark edited by K. Satchidanandan and Nishi Chawla (Penguin Random House, 2020); Witness: The Red River Book of Poetry of Dissent, edited by Nabina Das (Red River Press, 2021); Earth, Our Home: Poems of Climate Change (Pratham Books, 2021) and Gorwelion: Shared Horizons edited by Robert Minhinnick (Parthian Books, 2021).
As a participant of international translation workshops, Sampurna has worked with poets from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, Spain, Switzerland, Portugal, Holland, Malta, Slovenia, Galicia and Estonia. Her own poetry has been translated into the languages of these countries as well as into Arabic, Kannada, Manipuri, Marathi and Gujarati.
She has read her poetry at Indian and International Festivals including Hay-on-Wye, Ledbury Poetry Festival, Alchemy 2015 (as part of the “Walking Cities” Project celebrating Dylan Thomas’s centenary), Alchemy 2016 (as part of Shakespeare’s quatercentenary celebrations), Jaipur Literature Festival – JLF@Melbourne 2017, the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2018 and the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival 2019.
Ranjit Hoskote
Ranjit Hoskote is a poet, cultural theorist, translator and curator based in Bombay, India. His seven collections of poetry include Zones of Assault (Rupa & Co., 1991), The Cartographer’s Apprentice (Pundole Art Gallery, 2000), The Sleepwalker’s Archive (Single Line, 2001), Vanishing Acts (Penguin, 2006), Central Time (Penguin, 2014), Jonahwhale (Penguin, 2018, published in the UK by Arc as The Atlas of Lost Beliefs, 2020, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation), and Hunchprose (Penguin, 2021). Hoskote’s next collection of poems, Icelight, is due out from Wesleyan University Press in Spring 2023.
His translation of a celebrated 14th-century Kashmiri woman mystic’s poetry has appeared as I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Ded (Penguin Classics, 2011). He is the editor of Reasons for Belonging: Fourteen Contemporary Indian Poets (Penguin, 2002) and Dom Moraes: Selected Poems (Penguin Modern Classics, 2012). With Ilija Trojanow, Hoskote wrote the acclaimed study of transcultural connections in history, Kampfabsage (Blessing, 2007; in English as Confluences: Forgotten Histories from East and West, Yoda, 2012).Hoskote curated India’s first-ever national pavilion at the Venice Biennale as Everyone Agrees, It’s About to Explode (2011) and was co-curator of the 7th Gwangju Biennale, with Okwui Enwezor and Hyunjin Kim (2008). He has curated more than 50 exhibitions of Indian and global art since 1994. These include mid-career or lifetime retrospectives and deep-focus introspectives of major artists such as Atul Dodiya (Japan Foundation Asia Center, Tokyo 2001, and National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi 2013), Jehangir Sabavala (National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai 2005 and New Delhi 2006), G R Iranna (National Gallery of Modern Art, Bangalore 2016), Laxman Shreshtha (CSMVS Museum, Mumbai 2016), Sakti Burman (National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai 2017), M F Husain (Mathaf Museum of Modern Art, Doha 2019), Jogen Chowdhury (Kolkata Centre for Creativity, Kolkata 2019), Mehlli Gobhai (National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai 2020), and F N Souza (CSMVS Museum, Mumbai 2022).
Mustansir Dalvi
Mustansir Dalvi is a poet, translator and editor. He has three books of poems — Brouhahas of Cocks (Poetrywala, 2013), Cosmopolitician (Poetrywala, 2018) and WALK (Yavanika Press, 2020/Poetrywala2021). His poems are included in the anthologies: Singing in the Dark: A Global Anthology of Poetry under Lockdown (K. Satchidanandan and Nishi Chawla, editors, Penguin/ Vintage Books, 2020); Bloomsbury Book of Great Indian Love Poems (Abhay K., editor, Bloomsbury India, 2020); Open Your Eyes: An Anthology on Climate Change (Vinita Agrawal, editor, Hawakal, 2020); To Catch a Poem: An Anthology of Poetry for Young People (Jane Bhandari and Anju Makhija, editors, Sahitya Akademi, 2014) and These My Words: The Penguin Book of Indian Poetry (Eunice de Souza and Melanie Silgardo, editors, Penguin, 2012). His poems have been translated into French, Croatian, Gujarati, Marathi and Hindi.
Mustansir Dalvi’s 2012 English translation of Muhammad Iqbal’s influential Shikwa and Jawaab-e-Shikwa from the Urdu as Taking Issue and Allah’s Answer (India Penguin Modern Classics) has been described as ‘insolent and heretical’ and makes Iqbal’s verse accessible to the modern reader.Taking Issue and Allah’s Answer was adjudged Runner Up for the Muse India Translation Award 2013. He is the editor of Man without a Navel a collection of new and selected translations of Hemant Divate’s poems from the Marathi (2018, Poetrywala).
Mustansir Dalvi was born in Bombay. He teaches architecture in Mumbai
Subhro Bandopadhyay
Subhro Bandopadhyay (b. 1978, Kolkata, India) is a poet. His first chapbook was published in 2000. Since then, he has published five books of poetry titled Chitabagh Shahor, Bouddho Lekhomala O Onyanyo Shraman, for which he received India’s national award for young writers the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar in 2013, Kacher Sarbonam, Ritu dwiprahor and this year the long book length poem Osarlipi. He published a pocket biography of Pablo Neruda, Ajana Pablo Neruda. He published four poetry collections in Spain, La ciudad leopardo (Olifante, 2010), Poemas metálicos (Amargord,2013), Sumar sal (Sastre de Apollinaire, 2018) and Shamán (Amargord, 2022). Bandopadhyay is a recipient of the 2008 Beca Internacional Antonio Machado para la creación poética from the Government of Spain and the 2014 Poetas de Otros Mundos award from Fondo Poético Internacional.
He participated in the exchange residency Poetry connections India-Wales organized by Literature Across Frontiers and the British Council. English translations of his poems appeared in magazines like Jacket 2. He was invited to many distinguished literary festivals like Medellín International Poetry Festival, Colombia; Expoesía, Spain; FIL Guadalajara, Mexico; Jaipur Literature Festival.
He participated in four collaborative poetry projects which later published as books. Two of them, Aerial roots (with British poet Nicky Arscott, his part translated by Sampurna Chattarji) as the result of Poetry Connection India Wales) and Mapping Gondwana (with South African poet Ari Sitas, Subhro’s part translated by Sampurna Chattarji) are published by Poterywala, the other two with Spanish poets Marifé Santiago Bolaños (Mapa de silencio, 2020) and Fermín Herrero (Correspondencias, 2022) are published in Spain by Ediciones Amargord.
He is the anthologist-translator of the maiden post-independence Bengali poetry anthology La pared de agua in Spanish, published in Spain and Chile
He teaches Spanish language and curates the Indo-Iberian poetry festival Iberoamerican Voices at Instituto Cervantes New Delhi.
Sanjeev Khandekar
Sanjeev Khandekar (1958) is a poet, writer, editor, socio-political activist, commentator on varied issues and visual artist. His six books of poetry include Kavita (Granthali, 1990) a collection of his early poetry and Search Engine (Granthali, 2004). These collections have been followed by three volumes of poetry - All that I Wanna Do (Abhidanantar, 2005), Mutatis Mutandis (Poetrywala, 2006), Two Poems (2006) and 'Smiles' (2007) His first book of visual poetry '1,2,3... Happy Galaxy' (2007) and his latest book of essays Rutusamhar is published by Lokvangmaya Prakashan in 2019.
In 1982, he edited Sankalp: A collection of essays by social activists in Maharashtra. His second book, the novel Ashant Parva (Season of Unrest, 1992), concerns itself with the construction of a politically sensitive self in post-industrial India. He has exhibited solo and in groups in India and abroad.
Sachin C. Ketkar
Sachin C. Ketkar is a bilingual writer, translator, editor, blogger and researcher based in Baroda, Gujarat. His collections of Marathi poetry are Jarasandhachya Blogvarche Kahi Ansh (2010) and Bhintishivaicya Khidkitun Dokavtana, (2004). His poems have been translated into Gujarati, Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam and Telugu. Changlya Kavitevarchi Statutory Warning: Samkaleen Marathi Kavita, Jagatikikaran ani Bhashantar (Sept 2016) is a collection of Marathi articles on contemporary Marathi poetry, globalization and translation.
His books in English include Skin, Spam and Other Fake Encounters: Selected Marathi Poems in translation, (2011), (Trans) Migrating Words: Refractions on Indian Translation Studies (2010) and A Dirge for the Dead Dog and Other Incantations (2003). He has extensively translated present-day Marathi poetry, most of which is collected in the anthology Live Update: An Anthology of Recent Marathi Poetry, 2005 edited by him. Apart from rendering the fifteenth century Gujarati poet Narsinh Mehta for his doctoral research, he has also translated numerous modern Gujarati writers like Ghulam Mohammed Sheikh, Bhupen Khakkar, Jayant Khatri, Rajendra Patel, Jaydev Shukla, Rajesh Pandya, Nazir Mansuri and Mona Patrawala into English. He won the ‘Indian Literature Poetry Translation Prize’, given by Indian Literature Journal, Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi for translation of modern Gujarati poetry in 2000. He has translated fiction by Jorge Luis Borges, Ted Hughes and Adam Thorpe into Marathi. He works as Professor in English, at the Faculty of Arts, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara. Currently, he is working on A Critical History of Marathi Literature
Saleel Wagh
Saleel Wagh (1967) He is a leading Marathi poet and is considered one of the major voices of contemporary Marathi poetry. His first book Nivdak Kavita (published in 1996) left a deep impact on contemporary Marathi poetry. Later, he came up with another rebelling work with razor-sharp and oblique idioms 'Racecourse aani Itar Kavita' (2008) which is considered an important milestone in contemporary Marathi poetry. His book 'UlatSulat' (published in 2011) was another unique linguistic experiment of its own kind. There are seven poetry books, one prose and one translation, in all 9 books to his credit till now. His poems are included in major national and international anthologies by Sahitya Akademi, Penguin India, Poetrywala (Abhidhanantar) etc.
He has also published several scholarly notes on theoretical and contemporary issues in various leading newspapers, journals, and magazines. He is the present chairman of Marathi Abhyas Parishad - a voluntary organisation dedicated to language research.
Manya Joshi
Manya Joshi (July 17, 1972) is a prominent Marathi poet based in Mumbai. He is closely associated with the little magazine movement of the nineties, especially with the periodical Abhidhanantar. He is one of the most experimental poets writing today and represents the post-modernist sensibility in Marathi today. He is noted for his contributions to the post-nineties Marathi poetry movement. Manya is fascinated with the infinite possibilities of text to entertain his mind.
Manya has published two poetry collections in Marathi, Jyam Majya (2004- Abhidhanantar Publications) and Bhagwan Trip (2020- Poetrywala Publication). Educated from Mumbai University and the University of Oklahoma, Manya lives and works in Mumbai.