Poet Members

Gopika Jadeja is a bilingual (English and Gujarati) poet, editor and award-winning translator, active both in India and internationally. A PEN Presents translation award winner and Charles Wallace Scholar for Creative Writing, she holds a PhD in South Asian Studies. Her current literary practice blends archival research and memory with poetry as method. She is Editor-at-Large (Singapore) for Wasafiri: International Contemporary Writing and Coordinating Editor of the peer-reviewed creative practice research journal PR&TA: Practice, Research and Tangential Activities (pratajournal.com). She also edits and publishes 'Five Issues', a performance-publishing project comprising a print journal and a series of pamphlets. Gopika's poetry and translations have appeared in Granta, Modern Poetry in Translation, Asymptote, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Wasafiri, Cordite Poetry Review, Indian Literature, The Four Quarters Magazine, The Wolf, Sahcharya, and Vahi, among others, as well as in anthologies including The Art and Craft of Asian Stories: A Writer's Guide and Anthology, A Thousand Cranes for India: Reclaiming Plurality Amid Hatred, River in an Ocean: Essays on Translation, and No News: 90 Poets Reflect on a Unique BBC Newscast. She is the author of the poetry collection What Parvati Does Not Say (Red River, 2025). She is currently completing two further collections of poetry and forthcoming anthologies of English translations of poetry from Gujarat, including Dalit and Adivasi poetry.

Kanji Patel has five poetry collections in Gujarati to his credit—Janpad (The Vicinage), Dungardev (The Mountain Deity), Desh (The Country), Dharatina Vachan (Earth Song) and Amne Naa Bhulataan (Do Not Forget Us)—besides works of fiction and ethnography. Dahelu (translated in English as Rear Verandah), also translated into Marathi, is his best known fictional work. Books of selected poems in English and Hindi translation have been published as Earth Song in English and Dharati ke Vachan in Hindi recently. His poems have been published in print journals such as Indian Literature and Chandrabhaga, and online in Muse India, Asymptote, Cordite Poetry Review, and Antonym. His poems have appeared in Marathi, Bangla, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi, and also in anthologies in Irish, Slovenian and Swedish languages. He has been invited to various national and international literature festivals, including the SAARC and Commonwealth literary meets. He has been a member of Indian writers' groups sent by the Central Sahitya Akademi and National Book Trust to Sweden (1998) and Germany (Frankfurt Book Fair 2013). Patel founded and published 'Vahi', a journal of poetry, rituals and multilingual expression. He has established the Kaleshwari tribal art fair in Mahisagar district to provide a platform for the cultural expression of Adivasis and denotified and nomadic tribes from across India. He has edited the Gujarat, Diu, Daman, Dadra & Nagar Haveli volume of the People's Linguistic Survey of India led by G. N. Devy. Patel has curated contemporary poetry of Adivasi, denotified and nomadic tribes in India in original from 126 languages—400 poems by 370 poets—into English and Hindi translation in two volumes. He has translated into English songs and stories from oral and contemporary literature from tribal and nomadic tribes, and the translations have appeared in the journal 'Indian Literature', some of which were translated with others. He received the Umashankar Joshi Prize (1992) for novel, the Katha Award (1996), the Dhumketu Prize (2008), the Shivshankar Joshi Award (2015), and the Satchidanand Award (2026).

Professor Anamika teaches literatures in English at the University of Delhi. Her doctoral thesis focuses on the reception of John Donne across the ages. She has published extensively in the fields of Translation Studies and Gender Justice. In addition to eight volumes of criticism, she has authored seven well-received novels in Hindi. Three of her novels—'Dus Dware ka Peenjara', 'Aienasaz', and 'Trin Dhari Oat'—have received national awards and have been adapted into major stage productions. In 2020, she was awarded The Sahitya Akademi Award for her poetry collection 'Tokri Mein Digant'. Poems from her other collections—'Anushtup', 'Khurduri Hatheliyan', 'Doob-Dhan', 'Pani Ko Sab Yaad Tha', 'Band Raston Ka Safar', among others—are prescribed at various universities and have been translated into languages such as Malayalam, Marathi, Bangla, Punjabi, Oriya, Kannada, Korean, Russian, and English. An avid translator herself, she is also the founder editor of the bilingual journal 'Pashyantee'. Her essays on womanist discourse in Hindi have been translated into several languages, and she herself has translated the works of Rilke, Neruda, Doris Lessing, Octavio Paz, and many fellow women poets. Her major English publications include 'Transplanting British Poetry in Indian Classrooms', 'Donne Criticism Down the Ages', 'Post-War Women Poets: Treatment of Love and Death', 'Feminist Poetics: Where Kingfishers Catch Fire', 'Translating Racial Memory', and 'Weaving a Nation: Proto-Feminist Writing in Hindi and Urdu'.

Kamalakar Bhat is a Professor in the Postgraduate Department of English and Research Centre at Ahmednagar College, Ahilyanagar, Maharashtra. A bilingual writer and translator working between English, Hindi, Marathi, and Kannada, he has published four collections of poems in Kannada. His poems have been published in AGNI, Indian Literature, Muse India, The Wise Owl, The Parcham, The Teesta Review, The Antonym, Litterateur, Outlook, Kritya, and Anam; and also in anthologies World Poetry Yearbook 2025, Yearbook of Indian Poetry 2024, Earth and Embers: South Asia in Verse, River of Songs: The Chandrabhaga Poetry Anthology, Scent of Rain: Remembering Jayant Mahapatra, among others. His poetry has been translated into Hindi, Marathi, Konkani, Croatian and Korean. His translation of the works of the Marathi poet Namdeo Dhasal was published in 2018. An anthology of poetry translated from ten Indian languages, appeared in 2021. His co-translation of the Marathi poet Hemant Divate's poetry was published in 2024. His Kannada translation of the Hindi poet Ashok Vajpeyi's poetry, appeared in 2025. In January 2026, two translated collections were published: the poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra translated from English, and the poetry of Rati Saxena translated from Hindi. He edited The Word in the World, a collection of lectures and essays by H. S. Shivaprakash, published by Manipal Universal Press in 2019 and internationally by Routledge in 2024. He has also co-edited Sangam, an anthology of world poetry (Sankathana Press, Mandya, 2023), and edited In the Light of Shiva, a selection of H. S. Shivaprakash's English poems (Red River, New Delhi, 2024). His latest book, Courtesy of Criticism: Selected Essays of Kirtinath Kurtkoti, has been published by Penguin Random House India. He is currently translating the tatvapadas of the nineteenth-century Kannada Sufi-bhakti poet Shishunala Sharif into English. Bhat has translated several modern Kannada writers, with his translations appearing in Indian Literature, Muse India, Cesura, The Bombay Literary Magazine, Indian Cultural Forum, Outlook, Guftagu, The Wheel Wagon, and Prologue among other places. He has also translated poetry from English, Marathi, Hindi, and Urdu into Kannada, many of which have appeared in leading Kannada literary magazines. He has guest edited The Bangalore Literary Review (July 2026). He is one of the coordinators of the "Kritya Poetry East and West". He has contributed columns to Kannada magazines and published over forty research papers in national and international academic journals and edited volumes. His essays and reviews have appeared in Indian Literature, Muse India, Outlook, The Wire.in, Scroll.in, Kitaab.org, The Bangalore Review, The Book Review, and Seminar. He has been invited to the Bangalore Literature Festival; Kerala International Literature Festival, Thrissur; Vishwaranga Literature Festival, Bhopal; Mumbai Poetry Festival; Gadyopadyo Poetry Meet, Kolkata; Book Brahma Literature Festival, Bangalore, Kerala Literature Festival, Kozhikod, and SSF Sahityotsav, Kerala. In recognition of his creative writing, he has received the PUTINA Award (2006) and the B. H. Shridhar Award (2023). He received the Mozhi Prize for Translation in 2024.

A. J. Thomas is an Indian English poet, translator and editor with more than 20 books to his credit. He has two poetry collections in English and in Hindi translation, respectively. His poems have been featured in more than ten international and national anthologies. He has edited more than ten books of poems of various poets besides anthologies. He has edited, in various capacities, Indian Literature, the bi-monthly English journal of the Sahitya Akademi (The National Academy of Letters, India), for about eighteen years in three stints. He is the Co-ordinating Editor for Malayalam in the Tamil Nadu government's project 'Disathorum Draavidam', for translation of literature books from Tamil to English and other Indian languages, and from those languages into Tamil at a later stage. He holds M.Phil. and PhD degrees in English (Translation Studies). He taught English at Benghazi University, Ajdabiya Branch, Libya, from 2008 to 2014, and was also a Senior Consultant at IGNOU. He is the translator of illustrious writers like O. N. V. Kurup, Paul Zacharia and M. Mukundan, and editor of books by U. R. Anantha Murthy. He co-edited Best of Indian Literature (1500 pages in two books and four volumes, Sahitya Akademi). In November 2023, his The Greatest Malayalam Stories Ever Told — an anthology of 50 short stories which are modern classics of the last 100 years, selected and translated by him — was commissioned by Aleph Book Company, New Delhi, and remains on the best-seller list in India; it also placed him on the shortlist of the Crossword Award 2024 in the best-seller category, and won the V. Abdulla Memorial Translation Award in May 2025 and the UNESCO Heritage Literature City Award of Kozhikode Corporation for Translation from Malayalam to Other Languages. His latest release, 100 Indian Stories, in February 2025, is again on the top-selling list. His translation of N. Mohanan's novel Orikkal became a social media sensation with phenomenal sales, mainly among Gen-Z, and was published jointly by HarperCollins Publishers India and DC Books, Kottayam, in April 2025. Besides the Crossword Award and V. Abdulla Memorial Translation Award, he has received the Katha Award, the AKMG Prize (which enabled him to tour the USA, UK and Europe in 1997), and the Vodafone Crossword Award (2007). He has been a jury member of many prestigious awards, including The Hindu Litfest Award and the Mahakavi Kanhaiyalal Sethia Poetry Prize, attached to the Jaipur Literature Festival. He holds the Senior Fellowship, Department of Culture, Government of India, and was Honorary Fellow, Department of Culture, Government of South Korea. He has been invited as a guest speaker in writers' conferences and readings in South Korea (thrice), Australia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Nepal, besides centres all over India.

Anvar Ali (b. 1966, Kerala, India) is a poet, lyricist, literary critic, playwright, documentary filmmaker, screenwriter, and translator. His four collections of poetry in Malayalam established him as a prominent voice in contemporary Indian poetry. His poems have been translated into various Indian and foreign languages, anthologised, and published in reputed literary magazines and journals. He has won two international awards and a state award for the screenplay of Margam, a feature film he co-wrote, and has won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Poetry for Mehboob Express, his third collection of poems. Call from the Other Shore, a biopic on Attoor Ravi Varma, the renowned Malayalam poet, was his first independent documentary film. He is an acclaimed contemporary lyricist who won the Kerala State Film Award in 2020 and the Filmfare Award in 2018 and 2024 for Best Lyricist. He participated in the Writer-in-Residence Program of the Literature Translation Institute, South Korea, in 2007, and was associated with Insurrection, a collaborative group of poets and musicians from India and South Africa, in 2024. He has also been part of various national and international writers' meets and festivals.