Amarjit Chandan (1946, Nairobi) lives and works in London.
He has published five collections of poetry, and two books of essays in Punjabi including Jarhan (Poetry), Phailsufian
and Nishani (Essays). Two of his books are also published in Farsi script from Lahore, West Punjab.
Amarjit has edited and translated over thirty anthologies of poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction by, among others,
Brecht, Neruda, Ritsos, Hikmet, Vallejo, Cardenal and John Berger in Punjabi.
Chandan was one of the ten British poets selected by Andrew Motion, the Poet Laureate, for the National Poetry Day in
2001, and participated in the International Alderburgh Poetry Festival.
English versions of his poems have appeared in England in various collections including Being Here (1995, 1999, 2005);
and in magazines such as the Poetry Review, Artrage, Bazaar, Critical Quarterly, Modern Poetry in Translation, Atlas, Brand
(England) Papirus (Turkey), Erismus, Ombrela and Odos Panos (Greece), and Lettre Internationale (Romania).
Amarjit received the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004 from the Language Department, Government of the Punjab, India;
and the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006 from the Panjabis in Britain, All-Party Parliamentary Group, London.
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