Hoshang Dinshaw Merchant (born 1947) is a poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 from India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. Most of his writings are in English.

Early years and education

Hoshang Merchant was born in 1947 to a Zoroastrian business-family in Bombay, India. On his mother’s side he descends from a line of teachers and preachers. Merchant was educated at St. Xavier's College, Bombay. He has a Masters from Occidental College, Los Angeles. Thereafter at Purdue, he studied Renaissance and Modernism, and for his PhD (1981), wrote a dissertation on Anais Nin. He has lived and taught in Heidelberg, Jerusalem and Iran where he was exposed to various radical movements of the Left.

Teacher, Poet and Critic

Since the mid-80s, Hoshang Merchant has made his home in Hyderabad, where he teaches English at University of Hyderabad

University of Hyderabad

The University of Hyderabad is a post-graduate teaching and research institute in India. It was established by an act of the Parliament in 1974 as a Central University. The university also offers courses under distance learning programs...

.

He has written 13 books of poetry, and two critical studies. He edited India's first gay anthology Yaraana: Gay Writing from India.

Poetry

• Flower to Flame (1989, Delhi: Rupa & Co.)
• Stone to Fruit (1989, Calcutta: Writers Workshop)
• Yusuf in Memphis (1991, Calcutta: Writers Workshop)
• Hotel Golkonda: Poems 1991 (1992, Calcutta: Writers Workshop)
• The Home, the Friend and the World (1995, Calcutta: Writers Workshop)
• Jonah and the Whale (1995, Calcutta: Writers Workshop)
• Love's Permission (1996, Calcutta: Writers Workshop)
• The Heart in Hiding (1996, Calcutta: Writers Workshop)
• The Birdless Cage (1997, Calcutta: Writers Workshop)
• Talking to the Djinns (1997, Calcutta: Writers Workshop)
• Selected Poems (1999, Calcutta: Writers Workshop)
• Bellagio Blues (2004, Hyderabad: Otherwise Books, Spark-India)
• Homage to Jibanananda Das (2005, Contemporary World Poetry Series, London: Aark Arts)

Critical studies

• In-discretions: Anais Nin (1990, Calcutta: Writers Workshop)
• Forbidden Sex, Forbidden Texts (2008, Delhi: Routledge)

External links

• Hoshang Merchant: Poet, Teacher, Lover
• "Sar Pe Lal Topi Parsi" by Hoshang Merchant, Outlook.com, 20 August 2001, accessed October 27, 2009
• "Hoshang Merchant - The Poetry of Jalwah" by Aparajita Roy Sinha, Channel6magazine.com, accessed October 27, 2009