Jaydeep Sarangi

Jaydeep Sarangi was born on 11 December 1973 in a forest enclosed town Jhargram in West Bengal.

Sarangi has a remarkable contribution in Indian Literature, translation and criticism. Although this son of red soil and quiet stream of Dulong had listened to the call of Muse at his early school days but appeared with academic writings and literary criticism alongside teaching in colleges and universities. So, he has edited and published a number of books of criticism on Australian literature, Indian writing in English, and postcolonial studies, which are prescribed and studied in different universities. Sarangi has a great contribution in modern Dalit literary movement in India, especially for Bangla Dalit literature. He has translated the works of several Bangla Dalit writers into English and tried to pave a way for them to reach at the global audience. Sarangi is not dalit himself but he has empathetic heart for the writers who have faced the hostility in the society and the challenge in their life and become the voice of the voiceless. Sarangi himself believes that "dalit writing is always a part of a movement. It cannot be confused with broad subaltern studies. It's a 'dignity discourse', parameters specific to stratified society in India". Sarangi has interviewed the great doyens of Indian Literature and a number of foreign legendary writers, poets, critics and litterateurs. He edits several national and international journals and has been acting as one in the editorial board of numerous reputed international journals.

Critical works

Sarangi has produced various disquisitions on Australian literature, Indian writing in English, postcolonial studies and Dalit Literature following the great Indian Ideologies developed in age-old tradition, Literature, culture, customs, myths and rituals. He opines that "as an English Writer we should appreciate what we have. critics and criticism keep writers alive". However, he has edited and authored more than 30 books of criticism to his credit on different literary genres; notably, Raja Rao: The Master and His Moves (2008), Indian Novels in English: A Sociolinguistic Study (2005), Jayanta Mahapatra: Joy Of Living And Loving In His Poetry (2011), Indian English Poetry: Identity Representation And Authenticity(2011), Exploration in Australian Literature (2011), Subaltern Speaks: Selected Essays on Sharankumar Limbale(2015, Diasporic Literature in English(2016) and many more; and thus, Sarangi has been widely acknowledged as an Indian English literary critic.

Creative works

Sarangi blooms with his collection of poems in 2012 with his maiden poetry volume, From Dulong To Beas: Flow of the Soul. He has then flourished as an Indian English Poet with his consecutive publications including Silent Days (2013), A Door – Somewhere(2014), The Wall and Other Poems (2015), and To Whom I Return Each Day(2017). Meanwhile, he has published his sole collection of Bangla poems Laal Palasher Renu.

Sarangi's poems, as Prof.S. A. Hamid reviewed, "take us into the world of colours, landscapes of the mind, that invite us to experience love, joy, loss, pain ...". Sahitya Akademi award winning Indian English poet Keki N. Daruwalla rightly observes that “Jaydeep Sarangi gives a fresh paint to everyday living. ‘Small rivers’ near tribal villages are his haunts. His language can be unorthodox, where a rock can turn into a ‘reckless flow”, but his poems are a rewarding read, with the scent of herbs coming through the pages” ; while, Mamang Dai finds his poems "as leaning towards the spiritual, a searching" . However, Sarangi's poems are subjective, philosophical and sometimes esoteric in nature, who believes: "Poems set us free/ From bonds of actions."

Indian English Literature undeniably lies in translation or 'transcreation' (i.e. the cognitive process of rendering native lingual thought into English; coined by P. Lal) as India being a multilingual nation the Indian English poets have their own non-English mother tongue. So, the art of translation or 'transcreation' has a great role in Indian writing in English. Jaydeep Sarangi in his Poem, 'Translator of Hope' from his latest poetry collection, To Whom I Return Each Day (2017) opens up with the role of a translator, saying: 'I am that link; a purpose' (18); rather, he has more skillfully summed up the dexterity of Indian English poets, by wordsmithing:

The Language of the poetAnd the translatorReason and effectAs if one will die without the other.('Who is My Master?', The Wall and Other Poems (2015))

However, Sarangi has translated a great number of Bangla (Sarangi's native language) poems and writings into English. He has translated Kazi Nazrul Islam's poems for International Center of Nazrul, Dhaka. He has widely translated the works of the legendary Dalit Writers like Manohar Mouli Biswas and Jatin Bala. Manohar Mouli Biswas's autobiography entitled Amar Bhubaney Ami Benche Thaki (2013) is translated by him along with his co-author, Angana Dutta, and published as Surviving in My World : Growing Up Dalit in Bengal in 2015.This translated autobiography has earned national and global reputation and has been enlisted into the syllabus of different universities. His translation of Sahitya Akademi Award winning Bangla poet Subodh Sarkar's Bangla poems into English, Not in My Name is in press.

Translation of Poems

-Bangla poems by Manohar Mouli Biswas translated by Sarangi

-Bangla poem by Jatin Bala translated by Sarangi

in a conversation with Jayanta Mahapatra

Sarangi in a conversationwith Subodh Sarkar

With Bill Ashcroft

MAUBS College, Mehsana, Gujarat

Sarangi has delivered talks/lectures in different continents. He has delivered keynote address in seminars /conferences and moderated panels on New Poetry, Postcolonial Literature and Marginal Studies:

• Talk on Introducing Indian Writing in English: Texts and Contexts at University of Rzeszów, Poland.
• Talk in an international conference on Dalit Literature in / and Translation at the British Centre for Literary Translation in the University of East Anglia
• Keynote address in an International Conference on Voices of the Oppressed and the Marginalised sponsored by Social Justice and Empowerment Dept., Govt of Gujarat and ICSSR and organised by MAUBS College, Mehsana, Gujarat on 27 February 2016.
• Chief Speaker in the National Seminar organized by the Odisha Association for English Studies on the Odisha Poets Writing in English on 21 August 2016 at Balasore.
• Talk at the Perth Poetry Club, Australia.
• Talk at The University of Western Australia
• Talk on Re-Framing the Canon: An Indian Context at University of Wollongong, Australia
• Speaker at University of Udine, Italy in April 2017.
• Talk at Pedagogical University of Cracow, Department of Philosophy and Sociology,Poland

Sarangi has produced a great number of volumes with the collaboration of a number of eminent writers or poets across the continents. He collaborated with the reputed litterateurs like Rob Harle, Usha Kishore, Angana Dutta, Sharankumar Limbale and many others. He had a great venture with the Australian Poet Rob Harle, and thus, paved a new path for Indo-Australian Writings. His art of collaboration in the volumes like Voices Across The Ocean (2014), Homeward Bound(2015) with Rob Harle and Home Thoughts: Poetry of the British Indian Diaspora (2017) with Usha Kishore has been widely acknowledged and is gradually attracted by the wide-readers, and has come into the scholastic discussions.

Poetry collections

• From Dulong To Beas: Flow of the Soul (2012), Author Press, New Delhi, India
• Silent Days (2013), Cyberwit, Allahabad, India
• A Door – Somewhere(2014), Cyberwit, Allahabad, India
• The Wall and Other Poems (2015), Cyberwit, Allahabad, India
• To Whom I Return Each Day(2017), Cyberwit, Allahabad, India
• Laal Palasher Renu (Bangla poetry Collection), Kolkata

Criticism

• Indian Novels in English:A Sociolinguistic Study (2005), Prakash Book Depot, Bareilly, India
• Explorations in Indian English Poetry (2007), Authorspress, New Delhi, India
• Women's Writing in English: India and Australia(2008), Authorspress, New Delhi, India
• Basavaraj Naikar: Trends and Techniques (2008), Authorspress, New Delhi, India
• Indian Women's Writings in English (2008), Authorspress, New Delhi, India
• Australian Literature(2008), Sarup & Son
• Raja Rao: The Master and His Moves(2008), Authorspress, New Delhi, India
• The Voice Of India: Critical Essays On Basavaraj Naikar(2009), Sarup Book Publishers Pvt. Ltd
• Indian Legendary Writers in English: Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan and Raja Rao(2009), Authorspress, New Delhi, India
• On the Alien Shore: A Study of Jhumpa Lahiri and Bharati Mukherjee(2010)
• Kamala Das: The Great Indian Trend-setter(2010), Authorspress, New Delhi, India
• A Great Orissan Pilgrim : A Study of Niranjan Mohanty's Works (2010)
• Glorious Trends: Indian Writing, Film and Translation(2011), Book Enclave
• Writing as Resistance: Literature of Emancipation (2011), Authorspress, New Delhi, India
• Jayanta Mahapatra: Joy Of Living And Loving In His Poetry (2011), Aavishkar Publishers
• Indian English Poetry: Identity Representation And Authenticity (2011), Books Way, Kolkata, India
• Exploration in Australian Literature (2011), Sarup Book Publishers
• A Textbook of Linguistics and Phonetics (2015), Books Way, Kolkata, India
• Subaltern Speaks: Selected Essays on Sharankumar Limbale(2015), Cyberwit, Allahabad, India
• Diasporic Literature in English(2016), Books Way, Kolkata, India

Edited Books

• Voices Across The Ocean(2014), Cyberwit, Allahabad, India
• The Land (2015), Cyberwit, Allahabad, India
• Homeward Bound (2015), Cyberwit, Allahabad, India
• Searching for the Sublime: Poems From Australia & India (2016), Cyberwit, Allahabad, India
• Stories of Social Awakening: Reflections of Dalit Refugee Lives of Bengal(2017), Authorspress, New Delhi, India
• Home Thoughts(2017), Cyberwit, Allahabad, India

Translation

• The Wheel Will Turn (Translation of Bangla poetry in English) (2014), Cyberwit.net, Allahabad, India, ISBN 978-81-928187-3-3
• Surviving in My World : Growing Up Dalit in Bengal (2015)(translated into English) SAMYA, 16 Southern Avenue, Kolkata ISBN 978-93-81345-09-2