Shiv K. Kumar (16 August 1921,Lahore,British India – 1 March 2017,Hyderabad,India)[1] was an Indian English-languagepoet,playwright,novelist, andshort story writer.[2] His grandfather late Tulsi Das Kumar was a school teacher and his father Bishan Das Kumar, was a retired headmaster. The letter 'K' stands for Krishna, i.e. Shiv Krishna Kumar.
Shiv K. Kumar was born inLahore,British India, in 1921. He matriculated fromDayanand Anglo Vedic High School in 1937. He studied for his B.A. atGovernment College, Lahore and his M.A. atForman Christian College,Lahore (1943).[3]
In 1943, he joined D.A.V. College Lahore as a lecturer, but moved to Delhi during thepartition. After brief stints as lecturer atHansraj College,Delhi, and as programme officer at theAll India Radio,Delhi, he left India to joinFitzwilliam College,Cambridge in 1950. In 1956, he received his PhD inEnglish Literature from theUniversity of Cambridge. The topic of his dissertation was 'Bergson and the Stream of Consciousness Novel'. His research supervisor was ProfessorDavid Daiches. He was also tutored by the influential British criticF.R. Leavis during his stay in Cambridge.
Shiv K. Kumar taughtEnglish literature atOsmania University, Hyderabad, and theUniversity of Hyderabad. During 1972–74, he was a UGC National Lecturer in English. He was the founder Head of the Department of English and the first Dean of the School of Humanities at the University of Hyderabad. He retired as the Vice-Chancellor (I/c) of the University of Hyderabad in 1980. He was the "Distinguished Visiting Professor" at the Universities of Oklahoma and Northern Iowa, and Visiting Professor at the Universities of Drake, Hofstra, Marshall, etc. He was also a visiting fulbright fellow atYale University.He was nominated as a member of the Jury for theNeustadt International Prize for Literature (USA, 1981).
Several of his poems and short stories have been broadcast over theBBC—and published in Indian, British, American, Canadian and Australian journals and magazines. They have also been translated into several Indian and foreign languages.
In 1978, he was elected as a fellow of theRoyal Society of Literature, London[4] during his stay in England as Commonwealth Visiting Professor of English at theUniversity of Kent atCanterbury. He received theSahitya Akademi Award in 1987 for his collection of poemsTrapfalls in the Sky. In 2001, he was awarded with thePadma Bhushan for his contribution to literature.
He lived inHyderabad and was married to Madhu and they had two children.[5][6][7]
His published works include:
As Poet :
His individual poems have appeared inThe New York Times,Poetry Review (London),Ariel,Southern Review,Hemisphere Meanjin,Western Humanities Review,Trafika (Prague), etc.
As Playwright:
As Novelist:
As Short Story Writer:
As Translator:
As Critic:
His research papers have appeared in such scholarly journals asModern Philology,Modern Language Review,Journal of Aesthetics & Art Criticism,Modern Language Quarterly,Modern Language Notes,English Studies, etc.
Miscellaneous:
Critical Books on Shiv K. Kumar:
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