FROM SAGARMATHA TO OLYMPUS MONS

YUYUTSU RAM DASS SHARMA 

& DAVID B. AUSTELL

READING THEIR NEW  AND SELECTED WORKS

THURSDAY, JANUARY 24^TH at 7:00pm

Global Center for Academic and Spiritual Life, New York University

238 Thompson Street (corner of Thompson Street and West 4^th Street, beside the NYU Kimmel Center)

This event is free and open to the public. The authors’ books will be available for purchase.

DR.  DAVID B. AUSTELL (United States)  is an emerging voice in the arena of contemporary American poetry. Austell grew up in the southern part of the United States during the 1950s and 1960s, his love of poetry growing from deep roots: from his mother who sent poetry, sacred and secular, to him all through college with her letters, and from his father who read Shakespeare and Coleridge to him as a child. He completed undergraduate and graduate degrees in English Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he also completed his Ph.D. in Higher Education focusing on International Education.  He has undergraduate and graduate degrees in English Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he also completed his Ph.D. in Higher Education focusing on International Education (his dissertation, The Birds in the Rich Forest, concerned Chinese students in the United States during the Student Democracy Movement). In 1992, he was a Fulbright grantee in Korea and Japan. He is currently the Executive Director of the Office of Global Services at New York University in New York City where he is also an adjunct Associate Professor of International Education in the NYU Steinhardt School  His first book of poetry, Little Creek, was published in January 2011 by Nirala Press, and his second volume, Garuda (also published by Nirala), was released in March 2012.  David’s poetry has also appeared in Infusion Magazine, and in The Rutherford Red Wheelbarrow.

More: http://www.davidaustell.blogspot.com/

Recipient of fellowships and grants from The Rockefeller Foundation, Ireland Literature Exchange, Trubar Foundation, Slovenia, The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature and The Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature, Yuyutsu RD Sharma is a distinguished poet and translator.

He has published nine poetry collections including, Milarepa’s Bones, 33 New Poems, (Nirala, New Delhi 2012), Nepal Trilogy, Photographs and Poetry on Annapurna, Everest, Helambu & Langtang (www.Nepal-Trilogy.de, Epsilonmedia, Karlsruhe, 2010), a 900-page book with German photographer, Andreas Stimm, Space Cake, Amsterdam, & Other Poems from Europe and America, (2009), and recently a translation of Hebrew poet Ronny Someck’s poetry in Nepali in a bilingual collection, Baghdad, February 1991 & Other Poems. He has translated and edited several anthologies of contemporary Nepali poetry in English and launched a literary movement, Kathya Kayakalpa (Content Metamorphosis) in Nepali poetry.

Two books of his poetry, Poemes de l’ Himalayas (L’Harmattan, Paris) and Poemas de Los Himalayas (Cosmopoeticia, Cordoba, Spain) just appeared in French and Spanish respectively.

Widely traveled author, he has read his works at several prestigious places including Poetry Café, London, Seamus Heaney Center for Poetry, Belfast, New York University, New York, The Kring, Amsterdam, P.E.N. Paris, Knox College, Illinois, Whittier College, California, Baruch College, New York, WB Yeats’ Center, Sligo, Gustav Stressemann Institute, Bonn, Rubin Museum, New York, Irish Writers’ Centre, Dublin, The Guardian Newsroom, London, Trois Rivieres Poetry Festival, Quebec, Arnofini, Bristol, Borders, London, Slovenian Book Days, Ljubljana, Royal Society of Dramatic Arts, London, Gunter Grass House, Bremen, GTZ, Kathmandu, Nehru Center, London, March Hare, Newfoundland, Canada, Frankfurt Book Fair, Frankfurt, Indian International Center, New Delhi, and Villa Serbelloni, Italy.

He has held workshop in creative writing and translation at Queen’s University, Belfast, University of Ottawa and South Asian Institute, Heidelberg University, Germany, University of California, Davis, Sacramento State University, California and New York University, New York.

His works have appeared in Poetry Review, Chanrdrabhaga, Sodobnost, Amsterdam Weekly, Indian Literature, Irish Pages, Delo, Words without Borders, Exiled Ink, Iton77, Little Magazine, The Telegraph, Indian Express and Asiaweek.

Born at Nakodar, Punjab and educated at Baring Union Christian College, Batala and later at Rajasthan University, Jaipur, Yuyutsu remained active in the literary circles of Rajasthan and acted in plays by Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Harold Pinter, and Edward Albee. Later he taught at various campuses of Punjab University, and Tribhuwan University, Kathmandu.

The Library of Congress has nominated his recent book of Nepali translations entitled Roaring Recitals; Five Nepali Poets as Best Book of the Year 2001 from Asia under the Program, A World of Books International Perspectives.

Yuyutsu’s own work has been translated into German, French, Italian, Slovenian, Hebrew, Spanish and Dutch. He just published his nonfiction, Annapurnas & Stains of Blood: Life, Travel and Writing a Page of Snow, (Nirala, 2010). He edits Pratik, A Magazine of Contemporary Writing and contributes literary columns to Nepal’s leading daily, The Himalayan Times.

Visiting Poet this fall at New York University, early this year, he participated as Guest Poet at the Poetry Parnassus Festival organized to celebrate London Olympics 2012.

Half the year, he travels and reads all over the world to read from his works and conducts creative writing workshop at various universities in North America and Europe but goes trekking in the Himalayas when back home.

More: www.yuyutsu.de