Sujata Bhatt is an Indian poet. She is best known for her anthology Brunijem (1988). He has been recognized as a “distinguished voice raising taboo issues in contemporary poetry”.
Contents
Wiki/Biography
Sujata Bhatt was born on Sunday, 6 May 1956 (age 67 years; as in 2023) in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Their zodiac sign is Taurus. She was born at her maternal grandparents’ house but soon after her birth she moved to her parents’ house in Pune. She did her schooling from St. Helena School, Pune. She was born in a middle-class family and grew up very close to her extended family. His grandfather and uncle were writers, which inspired him to become a writer himself. She was a storyteller to all her siblings, cousins and friends. Due to the financial constraints of the family, when Sujata was only 5 years old, her father moved to New Orleans, America with his family. Her family lived there for three years and returned to Pune, India when she turned 8 years old. Later, when she turned 12, her family again left India and moved to Connecticut, where she continued her schooling. He graduated from Goucher College, Baltimore. His father wanted him to become a scientist, so he took up science in his first year of graduation, but his love for literature and poetry led him to study philosophy in his second year of graduation. He graduated with a double major in English and Philosophy, but studying science during his first year of undergrad piqued his interest in science and led him to take several science courses. Later, she received an MFA from the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa.
Family
Sujata was born in a Gujarati Brahmin family.
parents and siblings
Sujata Bhatt’s father is a virologist and her mother is a housewife.
husband and children
Sujata married German writer Michael Augustin in 1988. He has a daughter.
Sujata Bhatt with Michael Augustin at Dickinson College
other relatives
Nanabhai Bhatt (educationist)
Nanabhai Bhatt was an Indian teacher, writer, thinker and Indian independence activist. He was the grandfather of Sujata Bhatt. She admired her grandfather the most and wrote a poem for him “For Nanabhai Bhatt”. It was published in his first poetry collection, Brunijem (1988). Sujata Bhatt was five years old when her grandfather Nanabhai Bhatt passed away. This article is written in the memory of his grandfather who spent many years in jail for helping Mahatma Gandhi. In it he talked about his admiration for his grandfather’s interest in literature. A stanza of poetry,
One semester in college I spent hours photographing him: a thin man with large hands, my grandfather in the middle of the night, in the middle of writing, in the middle of thoughts, he pauses to read from his favorite Tennyson.
religion/religious views
Sujata Bhatt has been following Hindu religion since childhood but according to her, it is not necessary for an Indian writer to be religious, in an interview while talking about her religious views she said,
I am interested in Hinduism because it is a part of my childhood. But I must say that I am also interested in other religions. I am also interested in Buddhism. An Indian writer does not need to be religious and does not need to focus on religion. My focus is usually related to my childhood and people I am close to, who are probably religious. I do not consider myself a part of any religion. And I am especially wary of all ‘isms’ and dogmas.”
Signature
livelihood
Sujata wrote her first poem at the age of 8. He published his first collection Brunziem in 1987. According to Sujata, most of the poems in her first collection were written in her early twenties and revolved around her isolation from India, her own memories and her own. Experience in India and desire for unity with one’s country. His first collection included many poems like Search for My Tongue, Swami Anand and Go to Ahmedabad.
Sujata Bhatt’s first collection
He published several collections including Point No Point (1997), Augetora (2000), Monkey Shadows (1991), and The Color of Solitude (2002). He wrote many poems that were considered ahead of their time because they dealt with subjects that were considered taboo and too personal to even talk about. Her poems such as White Asparagus and The Need to Recall the Journey talk about pregnancy, childbirth and a woman’s journey with sexual desires. She also translated Gujarati poetry into English for the Penguin anthology of contemporary Indian women poets. His poetry collection A Color for Solitude reflects his deep sensitivity and understanding of painting.
Sujata Bhatt’s Monkey Shadows
Sujatha was visiting writer at Victoria University in British Columbia, Canada, visiting fellow at Dickinson College, Pennsylvania, and poet-in-residence at The Poetry Archive in London. His literary works have been translated into more than 20 languages.
Awards, Honors, Achievements
- He received the Cholmondeley Award in 1991.
- He received the Italian Tratti Poetry Prize in 2000.
- He received the Commonwealth Poetry Prize (Asia) in 1987 for his first collection Brunizem.
- She received the Alice Hunt Bartlett Award in 1987 for her first collection Brunigheim.
fact
- During college, she studied French and German because she wanted to read the Spanish poet, Federico García Lorca, and the French philosopher and playwright, Jean-Paul Satre in their native languages.
- The poem ‘Swami Anand’ from her first collection Brunizem was based on her own experience with the Indian monk and writer Swami Anand.
- In an interview, he talked about the impact of moving from one country to another several times in his life on his poetry, saying,
I was reading a lot of literature in translation: Lorca, Neruda, Borges, Rilke, Celan, as well as writers like Akhmatova and Z. Herbert – to name a few. And I remained in touch with Gujarati poetry. But the whole time I felt like no one really spoke for me, no one had a life as strangely disjointed as mine – and so I felt alone in my writing, I felt my writing was too Eastern or Eastern. Doesn’t ‘fit’ with. Western tradition. The poem ‘Searching for my Tongue’ (in Brunizem and Selected Poems) grew out of this spirit. ,
- She has lived in India, Europe and America and has traveled extensively to different countries
- After college, he worked at Johns Hopkins University Medical School and also worked as a research assistant at JHU Medical School.
- Her poem, ‘Search for My Tongue’, was choreographed by Daksha Sheth and in 1994, it was presented under the name Tongues Untied in nine cities in England and Scotland by a UK-based South Asian Dance Youth Company. In 1998, it was presented again under the same name by the Daksha Sheth Dance Company at the Hong Kong Arts Festival.
- His idols are the English writer Christina Rossetti and the English poet Walter de la Mare.
- In 2014, he participated in ‘What If Not Transformation…’, a modern poetry event at the Southbank Center in London, England.
Sujata Bhatt at Southbank Center
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn