Debjani Chatterjee | |
---|---|
Born | 21 November 1952 Delhi, India |
Occupation | poet, writer, editor, translator, creative arts psychotherapist |
Nationality | British |
Education | BA (High Hons), MA (English and American Literature), MA (Arts Psychotherapy Practice), PGCE (English, Drama & R.E.) and PhD |
Alma mater | American University in Cairo, University of Kent at Canterbury, University of Lancaster, Sheffield Hallam University, Leeds Beckett University |
Notable works | I Was that Woman, Namaskar: New & Selected Poems, The Elephant-headed God and other Hindu tales, The Most Beautiful Child, Redbeck Anthology of British South-Asian Poetry, Who Cares:Reminiscences of Yemeni carers, Barbed Lines, Mango Shake |
Notable awards | MBE, Honorary Doctorate, FRSL |
Spouse | Brian D'Arcy |
Website | |
dchatterjeewriter |
Debjani Chatterjee MBE (born 21 November 1952) is an Indian-born British poet and writer. She lives in Sheffield, England.
Chatterjee was born in Delhi and has lived in India, Japan, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Egypt, and Morocco, before coming to Britain in 1972. She attended seven schools and five universities, receiving a BA from the American University in Cairo, Egypt, MA degrees in English and American Literature from the University of Kent at Canterbury and in Arts Psychotherapy Practice from Leeds Beckett University, and a PhD from Lancaster University, as well as a PGCE and honorary doctorate from Sheffield Hallam University.
After completing her PhD in 1977, Chatterjee worked in the steel industry and in education. From 1984 to 1994 she was Director of Sheffield Racial Equality Council. [1]
Chatterjee has written, translated, or edited more than 75 books, starting with the poetry collection I Was That Woman in 1989. Her books have been translated into several languages, including French, Welsh, Portuguese, Arabic, Bengali, Urdu, and Mandarin. She has won a number of prizes, including the Peterloo Poets Prize, and her book The Elephant-Headed God and Other Hindu Tales was selected for Children's Books of the Year in 1990.
In August 2010, Chatterjee contributed to an eBook collection of political poems entitled Emergency Verse - Poetry in Defence of the Welfare State edited by Alan Morrison. [2]
She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours. In 2012, she was an Olympic Torchbearer, carrying the torch from Sheffield to Rotherham. [3]
Debjani Chatterjee was an Associate Editor of the cultural magazine, Pratibha India, in the 1990s and 2000s, published by Sneh Bharti Trust; and of Tadeeb International in the 2000s. she was Reviews Editor of Writing in Education in the 1990s and 2000s, published by the National Association of Writers in Education. From 2016 to 2023 she was on the Advisory Board of Gitanjali andBeyond. In 2023 she became Editor of its creative writing and art section.[ citation needed ]
In 2023, it was announced by the late writer Roald Dahl's estate and publishers that his works, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory , had been "updated." Words and expressions that were deemed "controversial" and possibly "offensive" to "modern audiences" were removed from the original texts or amended in order to become "more suitable." Many writers, publishers, critics, and media commentators expressed their objection to the texts' changes. Debjani Chatterjee disagreed, stating to the BBC that she found it "a very good thing that publishers are reviewing [Dahl]'s work” and that, in her view, the changes were "done quite sensitively." [4] [5] [6] [7]
OTHER PRIZES, AWARDS & HONOURS
Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay was an Indian novelist, poet, essayist and journalist. He was the author of the 1882 Bengali language novel Anandamath, which is one of the landmarks of modern Bengali and Indian literature. He was the composer of Vande Mataram, written in highly Sanskritised Bengali, personifying India as a mother goddess and inspiring activists during the Indian Independence Movement. Chattopadhayay wrote fourteen novels and many serious, serio-comic, satirical, scientific and critical treatises in Bengali. He is known as Sahitya Samrat in Bengali.
Jayanta Mahapatra was an Indian poet. He is the first Indian poet to win a Sahitya Akademi award for English poetry. He was the author of poems such as "Indian Summer" and "Hunger", which are regarded as classics in modern Indian English literature. He was awarded a Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honour in India in 2009, but he returned the award in 2015 to protest against rising intolerance in India.
Bengali literature denotes the body of writings in the Bengali language and which covers Old Bengali, Middle- Bengali and Modern Bengali with the changes through the passage of time and dynastic patronization or non-patronization. Bengali has developed over the course of roughly 1,300 years. If the emergence of the Bengali literature supposes to date back to roughly 650 AD, the development of Bengali literature claims to be 1600 years old. The earliest extant work in Bengali literature is the Charyapada, a collection of Buddhist mystic songs in Old Bengali dating back to the 10th and 11th centuries. The timeline of Bengali literature is divided into three periods: ancient (650–1200), medieval (1200–1800) and modern. Medieval Bengali literature consists of various poetic genres, including Hindu religious scriptures, Islamic epics, Vaishnava texts, translations of Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit texts, and secular texts by Muslim poets. Novels were introduced in the mid-19th century. Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore is the best known figure of Bengali literature to the world. Kazi Nazrul Islam, notable for his activism and anti-British literature, was described as the Rebel Poet and is now recognised as the National poet of Bangladesh.
This article presents lists of historical events related to the writing of poetry during 2004. The historical context of events related to the writing of poetry in 2004 are addressed in articles such as History of Poetry Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Gopikrishnan Kottoor is the pen name of Raghav G. Nair, an Indian English poet. He is best known for his poem "Father, Wake Us In Passing". He is also the founder editor of quarterly poetry journal Poetry Chain. Kottoor lives in Trivandrum, Kerala.
Marilyn Nelson is an American poet, translator, biographer, and children's book author. She is a professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut, and the former Poet Laureate of Connecticut. She is a winner of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature, and the Frost Medal. From 1978 to 1994, she published under the name Marilyn Nelson Waniek. She is the author or translator of more than twenty books and five chapbooks of poetry for adults and children. While most of her work deals with historical subjects, in 2014 she published a memoir, named one of NPR's Best Books of 2014, entitled How I Discovered Poetry.
Arundhathi Subramaniam is an Indian poet and author, who has written about culture and spirituality.
K. Srilata is an Indian poet, fiction writer, translator and academic based in Chennai. Her poem, In Santa Cruz, Diagnosed Home Sick won the First Prize in the All India Poetry Competition in 1998. She has also been awarded the Unisun British Council Poetry Award (2007) and the Charles Wallace writing residency at the University of Sterling (2010). Her debut novel Table for Four was long-listed in 2009 for the Man Asian Literary Prize and released in 2011.
Anju Makhija is an Indian poet, playwright, translator and columnist. She has won several national and international awards for her poetry in English.
Rajlukshmee Debee Bhattacharya is an Indian poet, translator and literary critic writing in Bengali and English. She won First Prize at the All India Poetry Competition in 1991 organized by The Poetry Society (India) in collaboration with the British Council.
Torchbearer Debjani Chatterjee holds up the torch in the Red Room of the MAGNA Science Adventure Centre