Guest of the ilb 2001
Dilip Chitre was born in Baroda, India, in 1938.
During the latter part of his childhood he lived in Mumbai/Bombay. From
1975 to 1976 he participated in the International Writing Programme at
the University of Iowa. He writes and translates in two languages:
Marathi and English. Marathi, the official language of the Indian state
of Maharashtra, established itself as a vernacular to compete with the
elite Sanskrit. Today it is used by around 70 million people and ranks
among the world’s 20 most-spoken languages. In 1994 Chitre won India’s
national literature prize, the Sahitya Academy Award, for one of his
collections of Marathi poetry. He also received a Sahitya Academy Award
for his translation of 17th century poems by the Marathi poet Tukaram.
Chitre has
published 18 books to date, most recently the translation of a
3200-line poem by Shri Jnandev, a 13th century Marathi poet. »Poetry
has captivated me since I was 16,« admits the poet, artist and
journalist, who is also a successful film director. He collaborated
with Henning Stegmüller to produce the film: »Bombay: Geliebter Moloch«
for the German television channel ZDF in 1995/96. »I have to do many
different jobs to keep my head above the water.« Chitre has worked in
Africa, the U.S. and various parts of India, and has taught at European
and American universities. He now lives in Poona, around 100 km east of
Mumbai/Bombay.
According to Lothar
Lutze, who translates Chitre’s work into German, Marathi and English
represent »two facets of his lyric ego: the Indian rooted in local
tradition and the well-travelled cosmopolite.«
Chitres’s poetry
and translations both demonstrate how productively he combines these
two aspects. His creative renderings of Tukaram reincarnate the ancient
Indian mystic as a relevant contemporary. Many of Chitre’s poems, on
the other hand, present a personal image, reflected in the mirror of an
alien city marked by social extremes. For European readers
Mumbai/Bombay is an exotic and fascinating metaphor in which normal
people cope with the familiar themes of daily routine, friendship and
loss.
© international literature festival berlin
Dilip Chitre online: http://planetchitre.tripod.com
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