The Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English

Edited by Sukrita Paul Kumar & Vinita Agrawal.

The Yearbook is to be published from 2024 by Pippa Rann Books (an imprint of Salt Desert Media Group Ltd., U.K.). Published till now by Hawakal (India), the Yearbook will continue to be edited by the founders, Sukrita Paul Kumar and Vinita Agrawal.

The three issues of the annual Yearbook so far been published have carried a selection of work published in the relevant year by poets of Indian origin, wherever in the world they happen to live.

“We are grateful to Hawakal for their support. Now, however, the Yearbook has moved on to the international platform and global distribution network of Pippa Rann Books. We are thankful for the exciting new profile this affords to the Yearbook series”, said the Editors.

 The Editors

Sukrita Paul Kumar is a multi-award-winning poet, scholar, critic, and author. A former Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, and holder of the Aruna Asaf Ali Chair at Delhi University, she is series co-editor of  the “Writer in Context” series published by Routledge UK and South Asia, and the Guest Editor of Indian Literature, the journal of the Sahitya Akademi (Indian Academy of Letters).

Vinita Agrawal has authored five books of poetry, and won the Proverse prize, the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize and the Gayatri GaMarsh Memorial Award for Literary Excellence, USA. She is on the Advisory Board of the Tagore Literary Prize, Co-chair for the Global Council for Excellence for Environment and Sustainability, and one of the twenty poets to be featured in a Taiwanese documentary on Asian poets, Deepest Uprising.

“I applaud you (the Editors) for putting together the Yearbook… to celebrate all the ways that poetry has been written and celebrated in English over the last year” – Christopher Merrill, Director of the Iowa Writing Program, Iowa, USA

“Marvellous endeavour. I’ve been struck by the diversity of the poems and the locations of the poets. The Yearbook sits very well in the larger family of anthologies. It also makes up for a certain deficit that you have with periodic anthologies that might appear once in ten years. This is a good way of mapping and addressing the (poetry) scene as vibrant as it is, through a series of yearbooks benchmarking the scene of anglophone poetry in India” – Ranjit Hoskote, poet and art curator, Mumbai.

“A barometer of the poetry climate, the political climate of the nation. It is a very important record of what is being written and thought of by poets. Clearly the Yearbook (stems) from a deeply felt need. This was missing from the poetry scene. A valuable archive for students, readers and editors who would like to have some reference material of the poetry being written by Indians” – Sampurna Chattarji, writer, editor and translator.

“Editing a poetry yearbook in India is a Himalayan task considering its huge scope and cultural diversity.… a marathon venture made possible by the editors’ commendable spirit for inclusivity and commitment to poetry.” – Jaydeep Sarangi, poet; anthologist; Principal, New Alipore College, Kolkata;  and President of the Guild of Indian English Writers, Editors and Critics.