Yuyutsu Sharma

Yuyutsu Sharma
Yuyutsu R.D. Sharma, photographed at a poetry reading in Elyria, Ohio
Born January 5, 1960
Nakodar, Punjab, India
Occupation Poet editor writer translator
Residence Kathmandu, Nepal
Nationality Indian
Alma mater University of Rajasthan, Tribhuvan University
Genres Indian poetry, Nepali poetry
Website
www.epsilonmedia.de/yuyutsu/

Yuyutsu R.D. (Ram Dass) Sharma (born January 5, 1960) is a widely travelled Nepalese-Indian poet and journalist. He was born at Nakodar, Punjab of India and grew up in Nakodar and later at Nangal Township of Shivalik Nepal ranges of Mahabharata Hills where his father worked. He moved to Nepal at an early age and now writes in English and Nepali literature. Half the year he travels extensively to read from his works and conduct creative writing workshops at various universities in the United States and Europe, but goes trekking in the Himalayas when back home.[1][2]

Life and career

Sharma was educated at Nakodar under the supervision of his maternal grandfather, Dheru Ram and grew up in a very religious atmosphere with his mother, Shanti Devi and at the age of nine became a shaman as he was thought to be possessed by a serpent spirit, his family deity. He came under the impression of Naga ascetics whom his father, Madan Lal, revered, but later followed the course of Western education and received his early education first at DAV college, Nakodar, Punjab, and later at Baring Union Christian College, Batala and University of Rajasthan. Yuyutsu remained active in the literary circles of Rajasthan and acted in plays by Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Harold Pinter, and Edward Albee. Later he taught at various campuses of Punjab University, Chandigarh and Tribhuwan University, Kathmandu.

Yuyutsu quit teaching at Tribhuwan University in 1996 and opted the career of a freelance writer. He also started visiting the Annapurna region of Western Nepal regularly but only in 2006 published his work devoted to the region as The Lake Fewa and a Horse[3] and later in 2008, Annapurna Poems, Selected and New.[4] He also met German Photographer, Andreas Stimm at Frankfurt book fair in 2004 and his collaboration with Stimm resulted in three books of picture/poetry book in black and white, currently put thereto in a 900-page volume, Nepal Trilogy:Photographs and Poetry on Annapurna, Everest, Helambu & Langtang.[5]

Recipient of fellowships and grants from The Rockefeller Foundation, Ireland Literature Exchange, Trubar Foundation, Slovenia, The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature and The Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature, Yuyutsu RD Sharma is a poet and translator.

A widely traveled author, he has read his works at several prestigious places including Poetry Café, London, Seamus Heaney Center for Poetry, Belfast, New York University, New York, Western Writers' Center, Galway, Bowery Poetry Place, New York, The Kring, Amsterdam, P.E.N. Paris, Knox College, Illinois, Whittier College, California, Baruch College, New York, WB Yeats' Center, Sligo, Gustav Stressemann Institute, Bonn, Rubin Museum, New York, Irish Writers' Centre, Dublin, The Guardian Newsroom, London, Trois Rivieres Poetry Festival, Quebec, Arnofini, Bristol, Borders, London, Slovenian Book Days, Ljubljana, March Hare, Newfoundland, Canada, Royal Society of Dramatic Arts, London, Gunter Grass House, Bremen, GTZ, Kathmandu, Ruigoord, Amsterdam, Nehru Center, London, Frankfurt Book Fair, Frankfurt, Indian International Center, New Delhi, and Villa Serbelloni, Italy.

He has held workshops in creative writing and translation at Queen's University, Belfast, The University of Ottawa and South Asian Institute, Heidelberg University, Germany, University of California, Davis, Sacramento State University, California, Columbia University and New York University, New York.

He has published nine poetry collections including, Quaking Cantos: Nepal Earthquake, A Blizzard in my Bones :New York Poems', Milarepa's Bones, Helambu:33 New Poems,,[6] Space Cake, Amsterdam, & Other Poems from Europe and America,,[7] Annapurna Poems,[8] and Everest Failures.[9]

Two books of his poetry, Poemas de Los Himalayas (Cosmopoeticia, Cordoba, Spain) and Jezero Fewa & Konj (Sodobnost International) have appeared in French, Spanish and Slovenian respectively. In addition, Eternal Snow: A Worldwide Anthology of One Hundred Twenty-Five Poetic Intersections with Himalayan Poet Yuyutsu RD Sharma edited by David Austell and Kathleen D Gallagher has just appeared.

A collection of his poems in French, entitled Poèmes de l'Himalaya appeared from L'Harmattan, Paris in 2009.[10].

Currently, he edits Pratik, A Magazine of Contemporary Writing and contributes literary columns to the Nepali daily The Himalayan Times.

He was at the Poetry Parnassus Festival organized to celebrate London Olympics 2012 where he represented Nepal and India. Yuyutsu is the Visiting Poet at Columbia University, New York and has just returned from Argentina where he had gone to participate in International Poetry Festival, Buenos Aires.

In 2017, Amity University conferred Honorary Professorship at Amity University, Gurgaon, India.

Poetry

  • Quaking Cantos: Nepal Earthquake Poems , Nirala, New Delhi, 2016
  • A Blizzard in my Bones: New York Poems, Nirala, New Delhi, 2016
  • Nine New York Poems: A Prelude to‘A Blizzard in my Bones: New York Poems’, Nirala, New Delhi, 2014
  • Milarepa's Bones, Helambu:33 New Poems, Nirala, New Delhi, 2012
  • The Nepal Trilogy I-III Photographs and Poetry about the Nepal areas of Annapurna, Everest, Helambu & Langtang, www.Nepal-Trilogy.de,·www.Nepal-Trilogie.de) (english-deutsch, Epsilonmedia, Karlsruhe Germany, 2010
  • www.AroundAnnapurna.de: A photographic and Poetic Journey around Annapurnas, Nepal, Epsilonmedia, Karlsruhe Germany
  • www.WayToEverest.de:A photographic and Poetic Journey to the Foot of Everest, Epsilonmedia, Karlsruhe Germany, 2006
  • Annapurna Poems, Nirala, New Delhi, 2008
  • Everest Failures, White Lotus Book Shop, Kathmandu 2008
  • Space Cake Amsterdam and other Poems from Europe and America, Howling Dog Press, Colorado, 2009
  • The Lake Fewa and a Horse, Poems New, Nirala, New Delhi, 2005, 2009
  • Poèmes de l'Himalaya, trans. by Nicole Barrière and Camille Bloomfield, L'Harmattan, Paris, 2009
  • Poemas De Los Himalayas: Bilingual Spanish/English Poetry Collection, Translated into Spanish with an Introduction by Veronica Aranda, 2010,Cosmopoeticia, Cordoba, Spain
  • Some Female Yeti & other Poems, Nirala, New Delhi,1995
  • Hunger of our Huddled Huts & other Poems, Nirala, New Delhi, 1989, 2011
  • A Prayer in Daylight, Poems', Nirala, Jaipur, 1984

Non-Fiction

  • Annapurnas and Stains of Blood (Travelogue), Nirala, New Delhi, 2010

Translations

  • Dying in Rajasthan, 1985, Short Stories by Ramanand Rathi, (Translated from the Hindi), Nirala, New Delhi
  • Folk Tales of Sherpa & Yeti, 2008, Shiva Dhakal (Translated from the Nepali), Nirala, New Delhi
  • Roaring Recitals: Five Nepali Poets, (Gopal Prasad Rimal, Bhupi Sherchan & Others) (Translated from the Nepali),Nirala, New Delhi
  • Kathmandu: Poems Selected and New (An English/Nepali Bilingual Edition), Cathal O’ Searcaigh, Translated from the Gaelic by Seamus Heaney, John Montague and others; Translated into the Nepali, Nirala, New Delhi
  • Baghdad, February 1991, A Bilingual Nepali /English Edition, Ronny Someck, Translated into Nepali by Yuyutsu RD Sharma, Nirala Publications, New Delhi, 2010

Edited

  • Elysium in the Halls of Hell, 1991,Poems about India by David Ray, Nirala, New Delhi,
  • Dispossessed Nests: The 1984 Poems, 1986, by Jayanta Mahapatra, Nirala, New Delhi,
  • Bagar: An Asian Poetry Special Number, (1989–90) Kathmandu, Nepal
  • General Editor, Nirala Series (Since 1989)
  • Guest Editor, Omega, Special Issue on Nepali Poetry (www.howlingdogpress.com) with Michael Annis, Howling Dog Press
  • Pratik: A Magazine of Contemporary Writing, since 1990
  • Pratik's Special Dutch issue (2007 Spring Issue) with Harry Zevenbergen as Guest Editor
  • Pratik's Special British issue (2007 Summer Fall Issue) with Pascale Petit as Guest Editor
  • Ten: The New Indian Poets;Edited with Jayanta Mahapatra, Nirala Publications, New Delhi, 2013
  • Drunken Boat's Special Nepal Folio, Himalayan Arts,2017

References

  1. ↑ Sharma, Yuyutsu Rd. "About Yuyutsu". Retrieved February 19, 2013.
  2. ↑ Hunter, Poem. "Biography of Yuyutsu Sharma". Poemhunter. Retrieved February 22, 2013.
  3. ↑ The Lake Fewa & A Horse. Nirala. 2006. p. 86. ISBN 818569334X.
  4. ↑ Annapurna Poems (Hardcover). Nirala. 2008. p. 150. ISBN 8182500133. Retrieved February 22, 2013.
  5. ↑ Nepal-Trilogy: Annapurna, Everest, Helambu & Langtang (ebook). 2010. Retrieved February 22, 2013.
  6. ↑ R. D., Yuyutsu (2012). Milarepa's Bones, Helambu 33 New Poems. Nirala Publications. p. 49. ISBN 9788182500327. Retrieved February 22, 2013.
  7. ↑ Sharma, Yuyutsu RD (2009). Space Cake, Amsterdam, & Other Poems from Europe and America. Howling Dog Press. Retrieved February 22, 2013.
  8. ↑ Sharma, Yuyutsu RD (2008). Annapurna Poems (Hardcover). p. 150. ISBN 8182500133. Retrieved February 22, 2013.
  9. ↑ Sharma, Yuyutsu RD. Everest Failures (Paperback). Nirala. p. 40. ISBN 818250046X. Retrieved February 22, 2013.
  10. ↑ Sharma, Yuyutsu RD (2009). POÈMES DE L'HIMALAYA (book) (in French). p. 80. ISBN 978-2-296-10213-2.
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