PINAKI MAJUMDAR
Jamshedpur, Oct 28 : Adil Jehangir Jussawalla, one of India’s most eminent poets in
English, will be the Poet Laureate of the 12th Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest 2021, this year.
Tata Steel made this announcement on Thursday. The event will be held on a virtual platform next month between November 18-21.
Adil Jussawalla’s many-layered, clear-eyed, uncompromising poetry is mainly rooted in the
city landscape, describing equally its beauty and degradation, its position as a place of
refuge as well as exploitation, and the acceptance and meaning of it as home.
One of his best known and oft-quoted poems is Sea Breeze which describes Mumbai as a refuge for those displaced by partition.
The body of his work is contained in three main anthologies: Land’s End, Missing Person, and Trying To Say Goodbye, for the last of which he received the Sahitya Akademi Award.
Jussawalla is a graduate of the Universities of Bombay and Oxford and of the prestigious Architectural Association School of Architecture in London.
He worked for some years in the UK, after which he returned to Mumbai where he was a professor of English at
St Xavier’s College and later Literary Editor at several leading Indian publications.
His work has appeared in many anthologies. Together with his distinguished peers Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Arun Kolatkar, and Gieve Patel, he helped to establish “Clearing House”, a poet’s publishing co-operative.
Accepting the Poet Laureateship for Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest 2021, Adil
Jussawalla said: “It’s an honour to be named Poet Laureate of the Tata Literature Live! The
Mumbai Litfest. Poetry is the oldest, most quintessential, and often most accessible form of human literary expression, and I am pleased to know that the Mumbai Litfest gives its
practitioners a well-respected platform every year.”
Director of the festival, Amy Fernandes, said: “We are delighted that Jussawalla has accepted the Poet Laureateship for the 2021 edition of Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest. No reader in English, especially in Mumbai, is unfamiliar with his name or work. His poems are profound, perceptive, and memorable and the impact of his writing has influenced generations of poets after him, up to this day.”
Harish Bhat, Brand Custodian, Tata Sons said, “It is an absolute privilege to present the Tata Literature Live! Poet Laureate Award to Mr. Adil Jussawalla. A poet, a translator, a journalist, a lecturer and a man who co-created the poet’s publishing co-operative – Adil dons so many hats so well! We salute his incredible contribution to Indian English Poetry.”
