MANU DASH
ODISHA | INDIA
ABOUT
Poet, editor, translator, publisher and curator of the annual Odisha Art & Literature Festival, Manu Dash (b.1956) has published more than 30 books in Odia and English. While in college, he joined the Anam Writers’ Movement – an anti-establishment movement in Odia literature – shortly before the imposition of Emergency in India in 1975. His poetry collection A Brief History of Silence (2019) has been translated into the Germany by Helmuth Niderle and Published by PEN, Austria. His second collection of poems, Trespassing on Paradise (2023) has been translated into the Slovene language by Marjan Strojan and published by Sodobonost International, Slovenia. Besides, his poems have been published into many Indian languages including Hindi, Malayalam, Assamese, Kannada, Urdu and Bengali.
He is the founder of Dhauli Books, which won the prestigious Publishing Next Industry Award for the Best Printed Book of the Year in Indian Languages in 2018.
à propos
Poète, rédacteur, traducteur , éditeur et commissaire du festival annuel Odisha Art & Literature Festival, Manu Dash (né en 1956) a publié plus de 30 ouvrages en odia et en anglais. Au collège, il a rejoint le Anam Writers’ Movement – un mouvement anti-establishment dans la littérature d’Odia – peu avant l’imposition de l’urgence en Inde en 1975. Sa collection de poésie A Brief History of Silence (2019) a été traduite en allemand par Helmuth Niderle et publiée par PEN, Autriche. Son deuxième recueil de poèmes, Trespassing on Paradise (2023) a été traduit en langue slovène par Marjan Strojan et publié par Sodobonost International, Slovénie. Ses poèmes ont été publiés en plusieurs langues indiennes, dont l’hindi, le malayalam, l’assamais, le kannada, l’ourdou et le bengali. Il est le fondateur de Dhauli Books, qui a remporté le prestigieux prix Publishing Next Industry Award pour le meilleur livre imprimé de l’année en langues indiennes en 2018.
PARADOX
I love to live
In a sweet paradox.
The village where I was born,
The smell of delicious mangoes
Sighted in a thick jackfruit jungle.
My friend fathered by blindness
Bears an official identity
Mothered as lotus-eye.
My cousin, a born liar
Is the youngest recipient
Of the Sahitya Akademi puraskar
For an acclaimed travelogue
On places he has never visited.
My soft-spoken professor,
An ardent Gandhian,
Compromises himself
All along this planet
For minuscule comforts.
My rich publisher often laments
On my books he has published;
Fails to deliver royalty statements
In spite of repeated reminders.
A suggestion to those
Who dislike living in irony:
They fail to fathom
That life is not as white as the January sun.
The cyclone is an unclaimed industry
Producing the adrenaline of hope
For the space of assault we inhabit.
No cyclone, no music of development
You’ll hear. It connects us with memory;
If it does fail to visit
We earn cicatrices
Through bonfires of absence.
Breeding swarms of stories,
It settles in the hives of our past.
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