Creative Writing: Poetry, World Poetry, Translation, Epic, Performance, Critical Writing on Indian and African Poetry in English, Interdisciplinary Practice & Theory
Vivek Narayanan was born in India to Tamil parents and grew up in Zambia. He earned a master’s degree in cultural anthropology from Stanford University and a master’s in creative writing from Boston University. He has taught at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and in the mid-2000s worked at Sarai-CSDS, a center for experimental practice and theory in New Delhi. His books of poems include Universal Beach, Life and Times of Mr S and, most recently, After (NYRB Poets, 2022). A full-length collection of his selected poems in Swedish translation was published by the Stockholm-based Wahlström & Widstrand in 2015. He has been a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University (2013-14) and a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library (2015-16). His poems, stories, translations and critical essays have appeared in journals like The Paris Review, Chimurenga Chronic, Granta.com, Poetry Review (UK), Modern Poetry in Translation, Harvard Review, Agni, The Caribbean Review of Books and elsewhere, as well as in anthologies like The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem and The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poetry. Narayanan is also a member of Poetry Daily’s editorial board. He was the Co-editor of Almost Island, an India-based international literary journal from 2007-2019.
The artist credit for the image is Dyuti Mittal.
The short poem.
After. New York: New York Review Books, July 2022. Indian edition: HarperCollins, September 2022. 624 pages.
Låt varje språk vara främmande —“Let Every Language Be Foreign”. Translated by Erik Bergqvist. Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand, 2015. 208 pages. New and selected poems in Swedish translation.
Life and Times of Mr. S. New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2012. Reissued January 2020. 112 pages.
Universal Beach (second edition). Los Angeles / New York: Ingirum Imus Nocte et Consumimur Igni, 2011. 77 pages.
Universal Beach (first edition). Mumbai: Harbour Line Books, 2006. 76 pages.
Mason Core Teaching Award: Spring 2019, Fall 2020.
Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars, New York Public Library. 2015-16 Fellow in
Poetry.
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, Harvard University. 2013-14 Fellow in
Poetry.
ENGH 608 (Spring 2022): Craft Seminar —Research-Based Poetries
ENGH 391 (Spring 2022): The Forms of Poetry
ENGH 617 (Fall 2021): Graduate Poetry Workshop
ENGH 494 (Fall 2021): Advanced Undergraduate Poetry Workshop
ENGH 397 (Spring 2021): Poetry Writing.
ENGH 396 (Fall 2020): Introduction to Creative Writing.
ENGH 202 / ENGH 316 (Spring 2019, Fall 2016, Fall 2020): The Ramayana: Many Lives of a South Asian Epic.
HNRS 122 (Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2021): 20th and 21st Century Poetry from Around the World.
HNRS 110 (Fall 2017, Fall 2018): Introduction to Research.
Text As Material (Fall 2011, Spring 2012). Taught at Sarai-CSDS in New Delhi. Innovative creative writing workshop for advanced practitioners.
Introduction to Creative Writing (Fall 2002). Taught at Boston University.
Historical Anthropology (Fall 1999). Taught at the University of Natal, Durban, South Africa. Graduate and senior honors-level course.
South Asian History (Spring 1999). Taught at the University of Natal, Durban, South Africa. Undergraduate course.
M.A. (Terminal Degree), Creative Writing, Boston University, 2003.
M.A., Cultural Anthropology, Stanford University, 1995.
B.A., Summa Cum Laude, majoring in Peace Studies, Colgate University, 1992.