Nissim Ezekiel
Current City, State, Country
Birth City, State, Country
Biography
Nissim Ezekiel, Jewish poet, playwright, editor, art critic, and university professor, is widely known as the Father of Modern Indian poetry in English. He was a foundational figure in Post Colonial Poetry in English. Born and raised in a Bene Israel Indian Jewish family, his father Moses Ezekiel, also a college professor, moved his family from the village of Tal on the Konkan coast to Bombay for the education of his children. Fondly known as known as the “Poet of Bombay.” Ezekiel was a mentor to many younger Indian poets writing in English and emphasized the importance of craft in writing poetry, among other things. He also wrote a significant amount of prose and critical essays on various subjects, published in his “Selected Prose of Nissim Ezekiel.” His first book “A Time to Change”, published by Fortune Press, London, marked a significant departure from Indian poetry in English written in the pre-colonial era, in terms of both content and style. He is the author of seven collections of poetry, edited several books including “An Emerson Reader”, “A Martin Luther King Reader” and was the founding editor of the journal “Quest” and “Poetry India”, editor of Imprint magazine, “Poetry of the Commonwealth”, “The Indian P.E. N”, “World poets in English”, among others. Ezekiel was invited to many literary festivals overseas to read his poetry, such as the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1968. He was Visiting Professor at Leeds University in 1964, and Writer in Residence at the University of Singapore in 1988. In 1976, the University of Chicago brought out a special edition on him. The Arts Council of Britain and Canada also invited him, and in addition, travelled to Australia and Israel on invitation to read his poems. Ezekiel was the recipient of the Sahitya Akademi award by India’s National Academy of letters in 1983, and the Padma Shri award (India’s fourth highest civilian literary award) in 1988. The award given by the President of India, was given for his book “Latter Day Psalms.” His poems are studied as part of the NCERT curriculum in India and in schools overseas.
What is the relationship between Judaism and/or Jewish culture and your poetry?
At the end of the last section (X) of Ezekiel’s book “Latter Day Psalms” , Ezekiel says, and I quote:
…The images are beautiful birds
and colorful fish: they fly,
they swim in my Jewish consciousness.
God is a presence here
and his people are real…
Now I am through with
the Psalms; they are
part of my flesh.
Ezekiel wrote about ordinary things in an extraordinary way and although the themes in Ezekiel’s poetry are not specifically or overtly Jewish, there are several references to his Jewish background. For example in his poem “Background Casually” which is a long autobiographical poem, he refers to his Jewish ancestors as:
My ancestors, among the castes,
Were aliens crushing seed for bread
(the hooded bullock made his rounds)
The verse describes the profession of the Bene Israel Jewish people who, when (according to legend, came to India by a shipwreck which he does not refer to) followed their profession of oil pressing and became known as the Shanivartelis, the Saturday Oil Pressers. Earlier in the poem he describes how he was bullied in school… ‘a mugging Jew among the wolves.’ He also mentions how he was accused of ‘killing the Christ.’
Published Works
Poetry
Nissim Ezekiel Collected Poems (1952- 1988) (Oxford University Press 1992, Second Impression 1994)
Hymns in Darkness: Poems by Nissim Ezekiel (Oxford University Press, 1976)
Snakeskin and other poems by Indira Sant Translated from the Marathi by Nissim Ezekiel and Vrinda Nabar. (Nirmala Sadanand Publishers, 1975)
The Exact Name: Poems (Writer’s Workshop Calcutta, 1965)
The Unfinished Man: Poems by Nissim Ezekiel (Writer’s Workshop Calcutta, 1960)
The Third: Poems by Nissim Ezekiel (Self Published, 1958)
Sixty poems: Poems by Nissim Ezekiel (Self Published, 1953)
A Time to Change: Poems by Nissim Ezekiel (Fortune Press, London, 1952)
Prose
Nissim Ezekiel Selected Prose (Oxford University Press, 1992)
Plays
Don’t call it suicide.. A Tragedy (McMillan, Madras, 1994)
Three Plays (Writer’s Workshop Calcutta, 1969)
Songs of Deprivation (Enact, 1969)
Author Site
Video Reading
Current Title
Education
Wilson College, University of Bombay, BA in Literature
Wilson College, University of Bombay, MA in Literature
Birbeck College, London, Philosophy