Nissim Ezekiel

Ezekiel was born on 16 December 1924 in Bombay (Mumbai) in Maharashtra. His father was a professor of botany at Wilson College, and his mother was principal of her own school. The Ezekiels belonged to Mumbai's Marathi-speaking Jewish community known as the Bene Israel.[7]

In 1947, Ezekiel earned a BA in Literature from Wilson College, Mumbai, Bombay University. In 1947-48, he taught English literature and published literary articles. After dabbling in politics for a while, he sailed to England in November 1948. He studied philosophy at Birkbeck College, London. After three and a half years, Ezekiel worked his way home as a deck-scrubber aboard a ship carrying arms to Indochina.[8]

Ezekiel's first book,[9] A Time to change, appeared in 1952. He published another volume of poems, The deadly man in 1960.[10] After working as an advertising copywriter and general manager of a picture frame company (1954–59), he co-founded the literary monthly Jumpo, in 1961. He became art critic of The Times of India (1964–66) and edited Poetry India (1966–67). From 1961 to 1972, he headed the English department of Mithibai College, Bombay. The Exact Name, his fifth book of poetry, was published in 1965. During this period he held short-term tenure as visiting professor at University of Leeds (1964) and University of Pondicherry (1967). In 1969, at the Writers Workshop, Ezekiel[11] published his Three Plays which includes Nalini, Marriage Poem, The Sleep-walkers.[12] A year later, he presented an art series of ten programmes for Indian television. In 1976, he translated Jawaharlal Nehru's poetry from English to Marathi, in collaboration with Vrinda Nabar, and co-edited a fiction and poetry anthology.[13] His poem The Night of the Scorpion is used[14] as study material[15] in Indian and Colombian schools. Ezekiel also penned poems in ‘Indian English’ [16] like the one based on instruction boards in his favourite Irani café. His poems are used[17] in NCERT and ICSE English textbooks. His poem 'Background, Casually' is considered to be the most defining poem of his poetic and personal career.

Nissim Ezekiel is often considered the father of Modern Indian English poetry by many critics.[18][19][20][21]

He was honoured with the Padmashri award by the President of India in 1988 and the Sahitya Akademi cultural award in 1983.[22]

He edited The Indian P.E.N., official organ of P.E.N. All-India Centre, Bombay from The Theosophy Hall, New Marine Lines, and encouraged poets and writers.[23]

He was the founding editor of Quest in 1954.

After a prolonged battle with Alzheimer’s disease, Nissim Ezekiel died in Mumbai, on 9 January 2004 (aged 79).[24][25][26]

• Balaga Venkata Ramana's Nissim Ezekiel's Poetry- A thematic study (Scholars' Press, India, 2015; ISBN 978-3639767902)

• Subrat Kumar Samal's Postcoloniality and Indian English Poetry: A Study of the Poems of Nissim Ezekiel, Kamala Das, Jayanta Mahapatra and A.K.Ramanujan (Partridge, India, 2015; ISBN 978-1482848670)

• Shakuntala Bharvani's Makers of Indian Literature: Nissim Ezekiel (Sahitya Akademi, India, 2017; ASIN: B09ZBB2M6S)

• Apara Sharma's Nissim Ezekiel and Jyant Mahapatra : A Comparative Reading in Phenomenology (New Era, India, 2017; 978-8129001559)

• Sandeep K. Thorat's Indian Ethos and Culture in Nissim Ezekiel’s Poetry: A Critical Study (Atlantic Publishers, India, 2018; ISBN 978-8126927531)

• A. Raghu's The Poetry Of Nissim Ezekiel (Atlantic Publishers, India, 2019; ISBN 978-8126900862)

• Satish Kumar and Anupama Tayal's Indian English Poetry - A critical study of the poets Nissim Ezekiel, A.K. Ramanujan, Kamala Das, Jayanta Mahapatra, K.N. Daruwalla, Arun Balkrishnan Kolatkar and R. Parthasarthy (Sahitya Saroward, India, 2020; ASIN: B08DHTQ9TL)

• Rinkoo Wadhera's Existentialism, Upanishadic Perception and Via-Negativa in Indian English Poetry: The Oeuvre of Nissim Ezekiel (Authorspress, India, 2020; ASIN: B0893TP3KW)

• K.K. Singh's Different Thematic Perceptions in Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel (Aadi Publications, India, 2021; ISBN 978-8195250165)

• Shirish Chindhade's Five Indian English Poets: Nissim Ezekiel, A.K. Ramanujan, Arun Kolatkar, Dilip Chitre, R. Parthasarathy (Atlantic Publishers, India, 2022; ISBN 978-8171565856)

• 1952: Time To Change[27]
• 1953: Sixty poems[27]
• 1956: The Discovery of India[27]
• 1959: The Third[27]
• 1960: The Unfinished Man[27]
• 1965: The Exact Name[27]
• 1974: Snakeskin and Other Poems, translations of the Marathi poet Indira Sant
• 1976: Hymns in Darkness
• 1982: Latter-Day Psalms
• 1989: Collected Poems 1952-88 OUP

• 1969: The Three Plays Kolkata: Writers Workshop, India[28]
• Do Not Call it Suicide Madras: Macmillan India, 1993.[29]

• Ezekiel, Nissim (1992). Selected prose. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-562866-1. OCLC 624466913.
• Naipaul's India and mine- an essay[30]

• The Couple
• Enterprise[31]
• A Time to Change
• Philosophy
• Island
• For Elkana
• The Professor
• Soap
• Marriage
• In the country cott
• How the english lessons ended
• The Paradise Flycatcher
• Night of The Scorpion
• Goodbye party for Miss Pushpa T.S.
• Entertainment (was the best of one)
• “Background, Casually”
• Poet, Lover and Birdwatcher[32]

• The Golden Treasure of Writers Workshop Poetry (2008) ed. by Rubana Huq and published by Writers Workshop, Calcutta[33]
• Ten Twentieth-Century Indian Poets (1976) ed. by R. Parthasarathy and published by Oxford University Press, New Delhi[34]
• The Oxford India Anthology of Twelve Modern Indian Poets (1992) ed. by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra and published by Oxford University Press, New Delhi[35][36]

• R. Raj Rao, Nissim Ezekiel: The Authorized Biography (Viking, 2000)
• Sanjit Mishra, The Poetic Art of Nissim Ezekiel ( Atlantic, 2001)

• Indian English Poetry
• Indian poetry in English
• Indian English Literature
• Indian literature