Kunwar Narayan
| Kunwar Narayan | |
|---|---|
| Born |
19 September 1927 Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Notable awards |
Sahitya Akademi Award in Hindi (1995) Jnanpith Award in 2005 |
Sahitya Akademi Award in Hindi (1995)
Kunwar Narain (born 19 September 1927) is a poet in Indian literature, often regarded as the leading living poet in Hindi. He has read and traveled widely and written over the last six decades. Linked to the New Poetry movement, he publishes selectively and is characteristically polite. He read English literature and publishes in Hindi but also plays with English and Urdu. Earlier, he lived in Lucknow where his house was a centre of literary meets and classical performances. He now lives in with his wife and son. Influences on him have been diverse, from the Indian epics and Upanishads to Kabir and Amir Khusro, history and mythology to Buddhism and Marxism, Kafka and Cavafy to Ghalib and Gandhi.
Born on 19 September 1927, in Faizabad district, Uttar Pradesh Kunwar Narayan passed his M.A. examination in English Literature from Lucknow University in 1951. Married to Bharati Goenka in 1966, he has a son Apurva, born in 1967.
Political leaders Narendra Deva and Acharya Kriplani were key literary influences and he gives formative importance to his first visit to Europe, Russia and China in 1955 and meetings with poets like Nazim Hikmet Ran, Anton Słonimskie and Pablo Neruda. Later, his translations of the French symbolist poets like Mallarmé and Valery, and then of poets like Cavafy and Borges, contributed to his poetic development. His work covers varied genres—poetry, epic poetry, short stories, literary criticism, translations, essays on world cinema, history and Indian classical music, and articles of versatile cultural and human interest. He has been translated nationally and internationally, and his many honours include the Jnanpith Award, Sahitya Akademi Award, Kabir Samman, Vyasa Samman, Lohia Samman, Shalaka Samman, Warsaw University’s honorary medal and Italy’s Premio Feronia for distinguished international author (a prestigious honour given for the first time to an Indian writer and previously awarded to authors like Germany’s Günter Grass, South Africa’s J. M. Coetzee, China’s Gao Xingjian, Syria’s Adonis, Cuba’s Roberto F Retamar, Palestine’s Mahmoud Darwish, Iraq’s Saadi Youssef, France’s Michel Butor and Albania’s Ismail Kadaré).
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