Sujata Bhatt

Sujata Bhatt (born 6 May 1956) is an Indian poet, a native speaker of Gujarati. She has written many poems, most prominent of which is the English poem "Search for My Tongue". This poem is one in a section of "Poems from Different Cultures" in an anthology that is compulsory study for many fourteen to sixteen-year-olds in the United Kingdom.Fact|date=March 2007

Bhatt was born in Ahmedabad, and brought up in Pune until 1968, when she emigrated to the United States with her family. She has an MFA from the University of Iowa, and for a time was writer-in-residence at the University of Victoria, Canada. More recently she was a visiting fellow at Dickinson College, Pennsylvania. She currently works as a freelance writer and has translated Gujarati poetry into English for the "Penguin Anthology of Contemporary Indian Women Poets". Her poems have appeared in various journals in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, and Canada, and have been widely anthologised, as well as being broadcast on British, German, and Dutch radio. Bhatt now lives in Bremen, Germany with her husband, German writer Michael Augustin, and daughter.

Many of her poems have love and violence as themes, and explore issues such as racism and the interaction between Asian, European, and North American culture. The subject matter of her poetry has ranged from political strife to eroticism.

Search for my Tongue, one of her more popular poems is currently part of the GCSE Anthology section. One of her devotees Farhan Patel quotes "She is absolutely amazing". Rizwan a current GCSE student feels that "Her poems provide an insight into the strifes and struggles faced by immigrants to actually master with their new language as well as keeping intact their mother tongue". David Mendoza-Wolfson, another GCSE student feels that "this poem gives people from cultures foreign to those of south asia an insight into not only how immigants from this area feel but immigrants from all over the world".

Published works

*cite web
author = Sujata Bhatt
year = 2008
title = Pure Lizard
url = http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781857548334
work =
publisher = Carcanet Press
accessdate = 2008-09-13
*cite web
author = Sujata Bhatt
year = 2002
title = The Colour of Solitude (Second edition)
url = http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781857545890
work =
publisher = Carcanet Press
accessdate = 2008-09-13
*cite web
author = Sujata Bhatt
year = 2000
title = Augatora
url = http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781857543810
work =
publisher = Carcanet Press
accessdate = 2008-09-13
*cite web
author = Sujata Bhatt
year = 1997
title = Point No Point
url = http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781857543063
work =
publisher = Carcanet Press
accessdate = 2008-09-13
*cite web
author = Sujata Bhatt
year = 1995
title = The Stinking Rose
url = http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781857540482
work =
publisher = Carcanet Press
accessdate = 2008-09-13
*cite web
author = Sujata Bhatt
year = 1991
title = Monkey Shadows
url = http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9780856359354
work =
publisher = Carcanet Press
accessdate = 2008-09-13
*cite web
author = Sujata Bhatt
year = 1988
title = Bruzinem
url = http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781857549812
work =
publisher = Carcanet Press
accessdate = 2008-09-13

Awards

*Commonwealth Poetry Prize (Asia)
*Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize, 1988
*Cholmondeley Award, 1991
*Italian Tratti Poetry Prize, 2000

References

* [http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=1500 Sujata Bhatt at the Poetry Archive]
* [http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?owner_id=51 Sujata Bhatt at Carcanet Press]