Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari

Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari is a Hindi poet, critic, prose writer and editor, and has edited the literary quarterly Dastavez since 1978. He was named for the Padma Shri in 2023 in the field of literature and education, from Uttar Pradesh ^[1].

Teacher at Gorakhpur

Tiwari was born on 7 October 1940 in a village in what was then Gorakhpur district and is now Kushinagar ^[2]. He took his master’s degree and doctorate at Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gorakhpur University, and retired from it in 2001 as professor and head of the Hindi department ^[2].

At the Sahitya Akademi

In 2008 he became convener for Hindi at the Sahitya Akademi in New Delhi, and in 2011 he was elected its vice-president ^[2]. From 2013 to 2017 he served as its president, elected unopposed, and the first Hindi writer to hold the post since the Akademi was founded ^[2].

Fifty books

He has published more than 50 books: 13 of criticism, six collections of poetry, four travelogues, two memoirs, a diary, an autobiography, four books of interviews and 19 edited volumes ^[2]. Democracy, equality and freedom lie at the heart of his writing ^[2]. Some of his books have been translated into 16 Indian languages and into English and Russian, and he has taken part in literary events in many countries, from the United States, Russia and China to Mauritius and Nepal ^[2].

His honours include the Bharatiya Jnanpith’s Moortidevi Award, the Birla Foundation’s Vyas Samman and a lifetime fellowship of the Sahitya Akademi ^[2].