Adil Jussawalla

Last updated

Adil Jehangir Jussawalla
BornApril 8, 1940
Mumbai, India
OccupationPoet, Magazine Editor, Translator
Alma mater University College, Oxford
Period1957–present
Genre Poetry, Essays
Notable worksLand's End
Missing Person
Sea Breeze Bombay
Trying to Say Goodbye
Notable awards Sahitya Akademi Award (2014)

Adil Jehangir Jussawalla (born 8 April 1940, Mumbai) is an Indian poet, [1] [2] magazine editor and translator. [3] He has written two books of poetry, Land's End and Missing Person.

Contents

Sea Breeze Bombay is a fine, city poem by this poet. It is actually a response to the historical incident of partition in the year 1947 according to the poet, Bombay is a 'Surrogate City'. It provided shelter to numerous refugees after partition, during which there were many riots in India. Thousands of people were killed and many became homeless. The city Bombay acted as a substitute or surrogate mother to all refugees.

In the poem 'Sea Breeze Bombay' the poet presents a picture of the suffering of the refugees. These people from the north got relief in the worst heat. In the city many communities were reformed. In the hot sun a cool breeze gives pleasant, soothing experience. In the same way, the city Bombay also provided pleasant experience to all the refugees.

Biography

He was born to a Parsi family [4] and completed his primary education at the Cathedral and John Connon School in 1956. He then attended the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London from 1957–58. Later, he studied at University College, Oxford, receiving his M.A. in 1964. [5]

He worked briefly as a substitute teacher for the Greater London Council, then became a language teacher at the EF International Language Centre; a post he held until 1969. [5] He then returned to Mumbai, where he taught at several colleges, becoming a lecturer in English language and literature at St. Xavier's College in 1972. [4]

He was an Honorary Fellow of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 1976. [4] After that, he focused on journalism, serving as the book review editor at The Indian Express from 1980–81 and literary editor for The Express Magazine from 1980–82. In 1987, he became the literary editor for Debonair , a magazine originally modeled after Playboy . In 1989, he was promoted to editor and served in that position for several years, after which he returned to his writing career. [5] He has also translated several works by Gulam Mohammed Sheikh. [6] Together with Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Arun Kolatkar and Gieve Patel, he helped create "Clearing House", a poet's publishing co-operative. [7]

In 2014, he was presented with the Sahitya Akademi Award for his book of poetry, Trying to Say Goodbye.

Selected works

Anthologies

Jussawalla's work appears in:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vikram Seth</span> Indian novelist and poet

Vikram Seth is an Indian novelist and poet. He has written several novels and poetry books. He has won several awards such as Padma Shri, Sahitya Akademi Award, Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, WH Smith Literary Award and Crossword Book Award. Seth's collections of poetry such as Mappings and Beastly Tales are notable contributions to the Indian English language poetry canon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dom Moraes</span> Indian English-language writer and poet (1938–2004)

Dominic Francis Moraes was an Indian writer and poet who published nearly 30 books in English. He is widely seen as a foundational figure in Indian English literature. His poems are a meaningful and substantial contribution to Indian and World literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nissim Ezekiel</span> Indian poet (1924–2004)

Nissim Ezekiel was an Indian poet, actor, playwright, editor, and art critic. He was a foundational figure in postcolonial India's literary history, specifically for Indian poetry in English.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arun Kolatkar</span> Indian poet (1932–2004)

Arun Balkrishna Kolatkar was an Indian poet who wrote in both Marathi and English. His poems are known for expressing the humour in everyday life. Kolatkar is the only Indian poet other than Kabir to be featured on the World Classics titles of New York Review of Books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A. K. Ramanujan</span> Indian linguist

Attipate Krishnaswami Ramanujan was an Indian poet and scholar of Indian literature and linguistics. Ramanujan was also a professor of Linguistics at University of Chicago.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Writers Workshop is a Kolkata-based literary publisher founded by the Indian poet and scholar Purushottama Lal in 1958. It has published many new Indian authors of post-independence urban literature. Many of these authors later became widely known.

Indian English poetry is the oldest form of Indian English literature. Henry Louis Vivian Derozio is considered the first poet in the lineage of Indian English poetry followed by Rabindranath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo, Sarojini Naidu, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, and Toru Dutt, among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gieve Patel</span> Indian writer and artist (1940–2023)

Gieve Patel was an Indian poet, playwright, painter, as well as a physician. He belonged to a group of writers who had subscribed themselves to the Green Movement which was involved in an effort to protect the environment. His poems speak of deep concerns for nature and expose man's cruelty to it. His notable poems include, How Do You Withstand (1966), Body (1976), Mirrored Mirroring (1991) and On killing a tree. He also wrote three plays, titled Princes (1971), Savaksa (1982) and Mr. Behram (1987).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kamala Surayya</span> Indian poet and author (1934–2009)

Kamala Surayya , popularly known by her one-time pen name Madhavikutty and married name Kamala Das, was an Indian poet in English as well as an author in Malayalam from Kerala, India. Her fame in Kerala primarily stems from her short stories and autobiography, My Story, whereas her body of work in English, penned under the pseudonym Kamala Das, is renowned for its poems and candid autobiography. She was also a widely read columnist and wrote on diverse topics including women's issues, child care, politics, etc. Her liberal treatment of female sexuality, marked her as an iconoclast in popular culture of her generation. On 31 May 2009, aged 75, she died at Jehangir Hospital in Pune.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pritish Nandy</span> Indian politician and poet

Pritish Nandy is an Indian poet, painter, journalist, parliamentarian, media and television personality, animal activist and maker of films, TV and streaming content. He was a parliamentarian in the Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra, elected on a ticket from the Shiv Sena. He is the author of forty books of poetry in English and has translated poems by other writers from Bengali, Urdu and Punjabi into English as well as a new version of the Isha Upanishad. Apart from these, he has authored books of stories and non fiction as well as three books of translations of classical love poetry from Sanskrit. He was Publishing Director of The Times of India Group and Editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India, The Independent, and Filmfare in the 1980s, all simultaneously. He has held six exhibitions of his paintings and calligraphy. He founded Pritish Nandy Communications Ltd, the content company, in 1993. He also founded People for Animals, India's first animal rights NGO which is currently run by co-founder Maneka Gandhi as chairperson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arvind Krishna Mehrotra</span> Indian writer (born 1947)

Arvind Krishna Mehrotra is an Indian poet, anthologist, literary critic and translator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keki N. Daruwalla</span> Indian poet and short story writer (1937–2024)

Keki Nasserwanji Daruwalla was an Indian poet and short story writer in English. He was also a Indian Police Service officer.

Shiv K. Kumar was an Indian English-language poet, playwright, novelist, and short story writer. His grandfather late Tulsi Das Kumar was a school teacher and his father Bishan Das Kumar, was a retired headmaster. The letter 'K' stands for Krishna, i.e. Shiv Krishna Kumar.

Rajagopal Parthasarathy is an Indian poet, translator, critic, and editor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vihang A. Naik</span> Indian poet (born 1969)

Vihang A. Naik or Vihang Ashokbhai Naik is a modern bilingual poet from Gujarat, India. He has authored many collections of poetry in English and Gujarati, besides translating poems from Gujarati into English. He died in the year 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manohar Shetty</span>

Manohar Shetty is a Goa-based poet considered one of the prominent Indian poets writing in the English language.

Bombay Poets was one of the founding school of poets of Indian English literature of the post-independence era, consisting of both prose and verse. It was located in the geographical located in Bombay. Several members of the same are credited with redefining Indian English poetry as well as the perception of Indian poets abroad. The school began in the 1960s with prominent names like Nissim Ezekiel, R. Parthasarathy, Dom Moraes, Adil Jussawalla and many more gathering at Kala Ghoda where they would all sit and discuss about literature, present their own works & critically analyse others work. Due to their international acclaim, they have also performed their works at cultural capitals like Soho, New York, and many more of such places. Their selected works have also been achieved at the Cornell University Library.

References

  1. "Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation, Adil Jussawalla". jnaf.org. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
  2. "Now, Adil Jussawalla". guftugu.in. 24 December 2018. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
  3. "Jussawalla, Adil (Jehangir)". encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 22 March 2019.
  4. 1 2 3 Archived 22 February 2017 at the Wayback Machine "Adil Jussawalla: The Missing Man of Indian Poetry in English" by Bijay Kant Dubey @ Boloji.com
  5. 1 2 3 Brief biography@ Encyclopedia.com
  6. Adil Jussawalla @ Sangam House
  7. About the Author @ Google Books.
  8. "Trying to Say Goodbye by Adil Jussawalla". worldliteraturetoday.org. 20 February 2013. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
  9. "The Oxford India Anthology of Twelve Modern Indian Poets". cse.iitk.ac.in. Retrieved 23 August 2018.
  10. "Book review: 'Twelve Modern Indian Poets' by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra". indiatoday.in. Retrieved 23 August 2018.
  11. Mandal, Somdatta (15 June 2009). "Rubana Huq, ed. The Golden Treasury of Writers Workshop Poetry. Review: Asiatic, Volume 3, Number 1, June 2009". Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature. 3 (1). journals.iium.edu.my: 126–129. Retrieved 4 September 2018.

Interviews