Jeet Thayil

Performance poet, librettist, novelist, and journalist Jeet Thayil was born in Kerala, India. He was educated in Hong Kong, New York City, and Bombay, and his work across genres is noted for its innovative lyricism and use of far-ranging influences. Poet Vijay Seshadri noted that Thayil is “contemporary precisely because he has such command of the poetic and historical past, and because his invented language has such depth, archaeological richness, and reality.” Thayil’s collections of poetry include Collected Poems (2015), These Errors are Correct (2008), English (2004), Apocalypso (1997), and Gemini II: Selected Poems (1994). He edited The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets (2008), Divided Time: India and the End of Diaspora (2006), and Give the Sea Change and It Shall Change: 56 Indian Poets (2005). His first novel, Narcopolis (2012), was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won a DSC Prize for South Asian literature. He is also the author of the novels Low (2020) and The Book of Chocolate Saints (2017). Thayil lives in New Dehli.