‘Time writes its own script ...’ A Conversation with Sharmila Ray.

Abstract

Sharmila Ray is an Indian poet and non-fiction essayist writing in English, anthologised and featured in India and abroad. Her poems, short stories and non-fictional essays have appeared in various national and international magazines and journals since the late 1990s. She is an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of History at City College, Kolkata. She was on the English Board of Sahitya Akademi. She was the editor of The Journal (Poetry Society India) and looked after a column ‘Moving Hand Writes’, Times of India, Kolkata. Currently she is the vice-president of the Intercultural Poetry Performance Library, Kolkata and a Board Member of the Poetry Society India. She writes in English and has authored nine books of poetry (listed below). She also writes on Partition and her articles have been published in Bengal Past and Present and Glimpses of Partition in South Asian Fiction: A Critical Re-Interpretation, edited by Farzana S. Ali. She has conducted poetry workshops organized by British Council, the Poetry Society of India and Sahitya Akademi. She has read her poems at various poetry festivals in India. She had been invited to International Struga Poetry Evenings in Macedonia, where she represented India, and International Poets Meet in Kerala to share the stage with Ben Okri. She was the only poet writing in English from West Bengal to participate in VAK –the first poetry biennial held in New Delhi (2017). Her poems have been translated into Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, Manipuri, Slovene, Hebrew and Spanish. Currently she is working on a manuscript of non-fictional essays and poetry.
The interview took place at ICCR, Kolkata during our meeting in the month of April 2018.