MPT Board Member, Poet, Translator
Website: Amarjit Chandan
Amarjit Chandan was born in Nairobi in 1946 and studied in India at Panjab University, coming to Britain in 1980 to live in London. He has published five collections of poetry and three books of essays in Punjabi notably Jarhān (poems) and Phailsufiān and Nishāni (essays). He has edited and translated about 30 anthologies of Indian and world poetry and fiction by, among others, Brecht, Neruda, Ritsos, Hikmet, Cardenal, Martin Carter and John Berger in Punjabi. He was one of ten British poets selected by Andrew Motion on National Poetry Day in 2001 and participated in the International Aldeburgh Poetry Festival the same year.
English versions of his poems have appeared in England in a collection Being Here (1995, 1999, 2005) and magazines Poetry Review, Artrage, Bazaar, Brand, Critical Quarterly, Modern Poetry in Translation, Index on Censorship and Atlas (UK), Papirus and Akköy (Turkey), Erismus, Ombrela and Odos Panos (Greece) and Lettre Internationale (Romania). Three life-time Achievement awards by the Punjab Government, India; 2004, the Panjabis in Britain, All-Party Parliamentary Group, UK. 2006 and the Anād Foundation. New Delhi. November 2009. A short poem both in Punjabi and English has been engraved in 40-foot granite by Eric Peever and installed in Slough High Street square. His latest publication: Sonata for Four Hands, Collection of Poems (Arc Publications) was prefaced by John Berger. March 2010.
http://amarjitchandan.com/