ABOUT

SRINJAY CHAKRAVARTI

Srinjay Chakravarti is a writer, editor and translator based in Salt Lake City, in Calcutta, India.

A former journalist with The Financial Times Group, he has worked on the editorial staff of an international online financial news service. He has also worked on the editorial staff of an Indian daily newspaper. He currently works as a freelance academic/research editor and editorial consultant.

He was educated at various schools in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and Bombay (now Mumbai), at St Xavier’s College, Calcutta, and at universities based in Calcutta and New Delhi. University degrees: B.Sc. (Economics honors), M.A. (English). He was admitted to, or offered admission to, the University of Chicago, the London School of Economics and Political Science, the University of Liverpool, the University of Sussex and other institutions in the US and the UK at the undergraduate level.

Srinjay’s exophonic creative writing, including poetry, short fiction and translations, has appeared in more than 150 publications in over 40 countries. These include the journals and reviews of 20-odd colleges and universities. Among these are (in alphabetical order): American College, Madurai; Bilkent University, Ankara; Central University of Tamil Nadu, Thiruvarur; Chemnitz University of Technology; Edge Hill University; James Cook University; Pacific University, Oregon; Smith College; Southwest Minnesota State University; St Francis College in Brooklyn, New York; Stanford University; Stockholm University; Swinburne University; University of Arkansas at Monticello; University at Albany, State University of New York; University of British Columbia, Vancouver; University of Central Arkansas, Conway, Arkansas; University of Chicago; University of Florida; University of London; University of Louisiana at Lafayette; University of Lucknow; University of Nebraska-Lincoln; University of Otago, Dunedin; University of Salzburg; University of Sydney; University of Warwick; University of Wisconsin-Parkside; Victoria University of Wellington.

His poems were first published in 1988 in the Poetry section of the Calcutta-based The Telegraph (in The Telegraph Colour Magazine, the Sunday supplement of the daily newspaper), edited by Jayanta Mahapatra, when he was just 15 years old. His first prose piece was published in The Statesman when he was 17. Purushottama Lal, the Director of Writers Workshop, Calcutta, published his first poetry collection in 1994.

His first book of poems Occam’s Razor (Writers Workshop, Calcutta: 1994), published when he was 21, received the Salt Literary Award from Salt, the Australian literary and publishing organization headed by John Kinsella, in 1995.

His second poetry collection, Apollo’s Breath, too, was published by P. Lal and Writers Workshop, Kolkata, in 2009.

He has won one of the top prizes ($7,500) in the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Poetry Competition 2007–08. The Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Fund awards the Dorothy Prizes. Marvin Rosenberg (1912–2003), a professor at University of California, Berkeley, established the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Fund (formerly known as the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Fund) in memory of his late wife, the poetess Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg, who died in 1969.

His journalistic columns include essays and articles on economics, politics, physics (including astrophysics), religion, spirituality and literature (including literary criticism and book reviews). These include his columns on the editorial pages of The Telegraph and Indian Express, which have ranged from the arcana of Kondratiev cycles to the darker matters of astrophysics.

Apart from his passion for “transmodern” or “glocal” poetry and short fiction, he is particularly fond of playing tennis, practicing yoga and meditation, and listening to music.

He is married and has a son, Arinjay a.k.a. Om.

What does the name “Srinjay” mean?

Srinjay is a Hindu name, a word from the Sanskrit. The name of a king in the epic Mahabharata, its literal meaning is “Conquest-of-the-cosmos” or “Victory-over-the-universe.”