Melanie Silgardo (born 1956) is an Indian poet and editor of Goan origin who currently lives in London.
Biography
Raised by
Goan Catholics
Goan Catholics ( gom, Goenchem Katholik) are an ethno-religious community of Indian Christians following the Roman Rite of worship from the Goa state, in the southern part of the Konkan region along the west coast of India. They are Konkani pe ...
parents in
Bombay
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...
, Maharashtra she studied under
Eunice de Souza and became one of India's major English-language poets in the 1970s. With fellow poets
Santan Rodrigues and
Raul D' Gama Rose, she established the Newground cooperative which published their works. While studying in London, she published ''Skies of Design'' in 1985, which won the Asian Section of the Best First Book Commonwealth Poetry Prize. Until the mid-1990s, she worked at the feminist
Virago Press
Virago is a British publisher of women's writing and books on Feminism, feminist topics. Started and run by women in the 1970s and bolstered by the success of the Women's Liberation Movement (WLM), Virago has been credited as one of several Briti ...
before turning to creative writing and teaching.
Education
Born in 1956 in
Bombay
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...
, she studied English at the city's
St. Xavier's College, graduating in 1976. She went on to earn an M.A. in English literature from the
University of Mumbai
The University of Mumbai is a collegiate university, collegiate, State university (India), state-owned, Public university, public research university in Mumbai.
The University of Mumbai is one of the largest universities in the world. , the un ...
in 1978.
Works
Her early works were published in ''Three Poets'' – Melanie Silgardo, Santan Rodrigues, Raul d’ Gama Rose (1978).
In 1985, while studying at the
London College of Printing
The London College of Communication is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London. It specialises in media-related subjects including advertising, animation, film, graphic design, photography and sound arts. It has approximately ...
, she published a second collection of poems, ''Skies of Design'', which won the Asian award under the Best First Book Commonwealth Poetry Prize.
From the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, she worked as commissioning editor for the feminist Virago Press where she consulted with clients of colour and developed a large collection of Arab women's contributions to English-language writing in ''Opening the Gates'' (1980). In 2012, together with de Souza, she edited anthology ''These My Words: the Penguin Book of Indian Poetry''. Although she has not published any further poetry, she is still considered to have played an important role in support of women's poetry, not only for her own work but for the interest she has devoted to women's writing.
While Silgardo follows in the footsteps of Eunice De Souza, her poems are far more violent, as can be seen in her poem "Bombay", attacking the development of the city.
De Souza herself finds that Silgardo's poems are "deeply emotional but never mawkish".
See also
*
List of Indian writers
This is a list of notable writers who come from India or have Indian nationality. Names are sorted according to surname.
A
B
C
D
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
P
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Silgardo, Melanie
1956 births
Writers from Mumbai
20th-century Indian poets
Indian women poets
Indian editors
Indian women publishers
20th-century Indian women writers
Poets from Maharashtra
English-language poets from India
St. Xavier's College, Mumbai alumni
Indian women editors
Living people
People from Mumbai