In this meticulously researched biography, the author traces the development of Ezekiel’s poetry and life against the background of the intellectual, cultural and political climate in India. Nissim Ezekiel was born in a Jewish family in Bombay, and with his poetic evocations of the city, gave rise to a school of poetry popularly referred to as the Bombay school. Considered by many to be the father of Indian English poetry, he has been the inspiration and guiding light for a whole generation of younger poets, including Dom Moraes, Gieve Patel, Eunice de Souza and Ranjit Hoskote. The many facets of Ezekiel’s versatile personality – a bohemian responding to flower power with LSD and sex yet striving or an arranged marriage with a Jewish girl; a restless soul pursuing his interest in travel, art, literature, theatre and journalism, then setting down to a dedicated career in teaching – are skillfully brought out by Rao. Drawing on previously unpublished letters, poems and essays, as well as discussions with the poet and interviews with friends and peers, Rao examines the desires and realities of Ezekiel’s life. He brings out the contradictions that comprised it, and which ironically, nourished his muse. Rao also provides detailed analyses of Ezekiel’s poems, locating them in the context of Indian and world literature. Scholarly, exhaustive and provocative, this is the definitive biography of one of India’s foremost poets.
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