Indran Amirthanayagam

Indran Amirthanayagam (born 1960) is a Sri Lankan-American poet-diplomat, essayist and translator in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Haitian Creole.

Life
Amirthanayagam was born in 1960 in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). When he was eight years old, he moved with his family to London, England, and at age 14, his family moved again to Honolulu, Hawaii, where he began writing. He studied at Punahou School in Honolulu and played cricket at the Honolulu Cricket Club.

He then studied English literature at Haverford College, where he also captained their cricket team during his last year. Amirthanayagam has a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.

He is a diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service, based currently in Washington, D.C.

Work
He writes poetry and essays in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Haitian Creole. His Spanish collections include " Isleno" (R.I.L. Editores, Spain, 2021) El Infierno de los Pajaros (Resistencia, Mexico City), El Hombre que Recoge Nidos'' (CONARTE/Resistencia, Mexico), "Lirica a tiempo" (Mesa Redonda, Lima, 2020), Sin Adorno, lirica para tiempos neobarrocos (Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo León, Mexico, 2013). Ventana azul, was published by El Tapiz del Unicornio in February 2016 in Mexico City. In 2019, in Lima, "En busca de posada" was published by Editorial Apogeo, and Paolo 9 by Manofalsa.

His three collections in French, Aller-retour au bord de la mer. Il n'est de solitude que l'ile lointaine, and Sur l'ile nostalgique, were  published in 2014, 2017 and 2020 by Legs Editions and L'Harmattan.

He has also published The Splintered Face (Hanging Loose Press, 2008),Ceylon R.I.P. (International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Sri Lanka, 2001), and Coconuts On Mars (wwww.paperwall.in). The poem "So Beautiful" was broadcast on the PBS series The United States of Poetry. Univision reported on Amirthanayagam's Spanish poems in a news report in August, 1999. His poems have been anthologized in The United States of Poetry, World English Poetry, Language for a New Century, ALOUD: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, The Open Boat: Poems from Asian America, The Nuyorasian Anthology, Black Lightning, Living in America, The Four Way Reader #1.

His poems have also been published in Grand Street, The Kenyon Review, The Massachusetts Review, Exquisite Corpse, Hanging Loose, BOMB, and elsewhere in the U.S.. Poems written originally in French and Spanish have been published in Côte d'Ivoire, Haiti, Mexico, Peru, Nicaragua and Argentina.

His translations of Mexican poet Manuel Ulacia were published in Origami:Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books, 2023) and in Reversible Monuments: Contemporary Mexican Poetry. and Fafnir's Heart (World Poetry in Translation). Translations of Jose Eugenio Sanchez have been published online. Amirthanayagam has translated Kaita-Sofia Hakim, Chema Paz Gago, Natacha Feliz Franco, Natalie Gomez, Sylvie Poisson, Fabricio Estrada, Jorge Ureta Sandoval, Kenia Cano, Francois DeBleu and Beatriz Russo, among other poets from Latin America and Europe. His poetic history of the Sri Lankan Civil War, Uncivil War, was published in 2013. Amirthanayagam read in the international poetry festivals in London (1996), San Salvador (2005), Rosario (2005) Medellin (2010), Lima(2012), Granada, Nicaragua (2009 and 2014,), Santo Domingo (2015), Honduras (2019).

Awards
Amirthanayagam's The Elephants Of Reckoning won the 1994 Paterson Poetry Prize. The poem "Juarez" won the Juegos Florales of Guaymas, Sonora in 2006. Amirthanayagam has received the Superior Honor Award and the Meritorious Honor Award (thrice) from the Department of State for his diplomatic work. Amirthanayagam is a 2020 Poetry Fellow from the Foundation for the Contemporary Arts. He has also received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the US/Mexico Fund for Culture and the Macdowell Colony. In 2022 Amirthanayagam received the 2022 IFLAC World Poet/Poeta Mundial award.