Kunwar Narayan

Kunwar Narayan

Kunwar Narain (कुँवर नारायण) (born 19 September 1927) is a poet and a presence in Indian literature, often regarded as the leading living poet in Hindi. He has read and traveled widely, written over the last six decades and is among the few intellectuals who combine an international modern sensibility with a grounding in their country’s cultural and imaginative history. Linked to the New Poetry movement, he publishes selectively and is characteristically polite. He read English literature and publishes in Hindi but also plays with English and Urdu. Earlier, he lived in Lucknow where his house was a centre of literary meets and classical performances. He now lives in ] with his wife and son. Influences on him have been diverse, from the Indian epics and Upanishads to Kabir and Amir Khusro, history and mythology to Buddhism and Marxism, Kafka and Cavafy to Khālib and Gandhi.