Indran Amirthanayagam

Indran Amirthanayagam writes poetry in English, Spanish and French. He also translates from Spanish. His books include The Elephants of Reckoning (1994 Paterson Poetry Prize), El Infierno de los Pajaros, Ceylon R.I.P., and El Hombre que Recoge Nidos. His latest book The Splintered Face: Tsunami Poems will be published in the US by early 2008. Amirthanayagam's translations of Mexican poet Manuel Ulacia were included in Reversible Monuments: Contemporary Mexican Poetry. Recent translations of Mexican poet Julian Herbert were published in the Americas issue of BOMB. Amirthanayagam has received fellowships from the US Mexico Fund for Culture for translations and the New York Foundation for the Arts and the MacDowell Colony for poems. Amirthanayagam's essays have been published in the Hindu (India), Reforma and El Norte (Mexico), The Daily News (Sri Lanka) and the New York Times (United States). His poems have been anthologized in The United States of Poetry, ALOUD: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, The Open Boat: Poems from Asian America, Only the Sea Keeps: Tsunami Poems, among others. Amirthanayagam performs his poems with the group Non-Jazz. He also directed Palabras en Vuelo: Poesia en Conversacion, a program about poetry for public television in Mexico. He is preparing a new collection in Spanish titled "Sol Camuflado." Amirthanayagam won the Poetry Prize of the Juegos Florales in Guaymas, Sonora in 2006. Amirthanayagam was born in Colombo, Ceylon in 1960. He came to the United States in 1975. He has been a member of the United States Foreign Service since 1993. He has served his adoptive country in Argentina, Belgium, Cote d'Ivoire, Mexico, India and now as Public Affairs Officer at the United States Consulate General, Vancouver.