Generally speaking,
South Asian poets in the colonial period tended
to be imitative of English masters, but the best
of them can still be read with interest: (besides
Derozio) Toru Dutt, Manmohan and Aurobindo Ghosh,
Sarojini Naidu, Shahid Suhrawardy, Joseph Furtado.
India’s independence (1947) ushered in a
new poetry, more conscious of its local roots
and of a distinctive Indian/South Asian voice.
Nissim Ezekiel became the most influential of
the new Indian poets, who also included A. K.
Ramanujan, Kamala Das and Dom Moraes, who at a
precocious 19 became the youngest and the first
non-English writer to win the Hawthornden Prize.
In Kolkata another poet of this generation, P.
Lal, started the still-flourishing Writers Workshop
which has been described as India’s answer
to the Hogarth Press. In the sixties and seventies
poets like R. Parthasarathy, Arun Kolatkar (Commonwealth
Poetry Prize), Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Eunice
de Souza and the expatriate G. S. Sharat Chandra
built on the successes of their older contemporaries
by incorporating the influence of contemporary
American movements (Beat, Black Mountain, the
New York School, Confessional Poetry).
Suhrawardy, who emigrated to Pakistan after the
Partition of 1947 came to be regarded as the country’s
senior anglophone poet, alongside Ahmed Ali, who
is better known as a novelist. Taufiq Rafat, Maki
Qureishi, Daud Kamal, Alamgir Hashmi and the expatriates
Zulfiqar Ghose, Moniza Ali and Imtiaz Dharkar
have consolidated the anglophone tradition in
Pakistani poetry.
Among other South Asian countries Sri Lanka has
a thriving anglophone tradition that includes
a number of talented poets: Patrick Fernando,
Lakdasa Wikkramasinha, Jean Arasanayagam, Richard
de Zoysa, and the expatriates Yasmine Gooneratne
(also a well-known critic and novelist) and Michael
Ondaatje, better-known as a novelist. Bangladesh
has produced little anglophone writing, but Kaiser
Haq has built up a substantial oeuvre over the
years, and despite the quantitative thinness of
their output Feroz Ahmed-ud-din and the expatriate
Farida Majid deserve mention. Nepal, though never
colonized by the British, has privileged English
in its educational system. As in the rest of the
subcontinent this has resulted in the appearance
of anglophone poets, among whom the bilingual
Devkota and Abhi Subedi may be mentioned.
Understandably enough, the regional superpower,
India, also has the strongest literary tradition
in South Asia. Among its outstanding recent avatars
are Vikram Seth, who is equally significant as
a poet and a novelist, Agha Shahid Ali, who flourished
and died in USA, and Sujata Bhatt,who divides
her time between UK and Germany.
Broadly speaking, anglophone South Asian poetry
parallels the other anglophone traditions, with
clearly visible lines of influence and assimilation.
The critical protocol under which it is now studied
is usually provided by postcolonial theory, whose
efflorescence has provided it with a niche in
university curriculums worldwide.
Kaiser Haq, currently professor of English at
Dhaka University, Bangladesh, is a poet, translator
and essayist. He received his Ph.D. from Warwick
University as a Commonwealth Scholar, and he has
been a Senior Fulbright Scholar and Vilas Fellow
at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and
a Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at School
of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London
University.
| If
you would like to study South Asian Poetry
further at university undergraduate or postgraduate
level, click
here. |
http://www.geocities.com/varnamala/ineng.html
The Varnamala Indian-English Poetry, a web anthology
edited by Rajendra Kishore Panda. This is one
of the most comprehensive sites for Indian English
poetry.
http://static.highbeam.com/w/worldliteraturetoday
The website of a leading periodical specializing
inpostcolonial literature.
www.netpakistani.com
Net Pakistani Web Directory: Includes literary
items.
http://www.combose.com/Arts/Literature/World_Literature/Pakistani/Poetry/
A web anthology of Pakistani poetry, both in
English and in translations from other languages.
www.the-south-asian.com
The South Asian: A magazine that includes literary
contributions.
http://litencyc.com
The Literary Encyclopedia: Still not complete,
this website will have entries on significant
poets from South Asia.
http://www.wasafiri.org
WASAFIRI: A leading literary magazine promoting
postcolonial writing.
www.thedailystar.net
The Saturday literary page of The Daily Star
(Dhaka) publishes original work, translations
and criticism.
www.geocities.com/Paris/2583/poetry.html
Poetry Links especially Indian Poetry by Kshitij
http://members.rediff.com/poetrysplash/poetryscene.htm
This site covers the poetry scene in India,
in all Indian languages as well as English.
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