Mihir Kumar Jha, better known by his adopted pseudonym "Mihir Vatsa", is an Indian poet and writer. He won the

Sahitya Akademi The Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India. Founded on 12 March 1954, it is supported by, though independent of, the Indian government. Its of ...

Yuva Puraskar The Yuva Puraskar (Hindi: युवा पुरस्कार), also known as Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar, is a literary honor in India which Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on young writers of outsta ...

in 2022 for his travel memoir ''Tales of Hazaribagh: An Intimate Exploration of Chhotanagpur Plateau''. After Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, he is the second writer from

Jharkhand Jharkhand (; ; ) is a state in eastern India. The state shares its border with the states of West Bengal to the east, Chhattisgarh to the west, Uttar Pradesh to the northwest, Bihar to the north and Odisha to the south. It has an area of . It ...

to win the Yuva Puraskar award in English language. ''Tales of Hazaribagh'' received critical acclaim upon publication and was ranked among the top non-fiction books in 2021.

Life and education

Vatsa is an alumnus of DAV Public School, Canary Hill Road,

Hazaribag Hazaribagh is a city and a municipal corporation in Hazaribagh district in the Indian state of Jharkhand. It is the divisional headquarters of North Chotanagpur division. It is considered as a health resort and is also popular for Hazaribagh ...

. He obtained his bachelor's and master's degrees in

English literature English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...

from Ramjas College,

University of Delhi Delhi University (DU), formally the University of Delhi, is a collegiate central university located in New Delhi, India. It was founded in 1922 by an Act of the Central Legislative Assembly and is recognized as an Institute of Eminence (IoE) ...

, and is presently a doctoral fellow at the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.

Literary career

Vatsa published his first poetry collection ''Painting That Red Circle White'' in 2014. A poetry chapbook ''Wingman'' followed in 2017 as part of a limited-edition, collaborative project ''FIVE'', which also included chapbooks by poets Arjun Rajendran, Nandini Dhar, Usha Akella and Manjiri Indurkar. He has contributed poems to various Indian and international literary magazines, including ''The Island Review'' (UK), ''Eclectica'' (US), ''Stand'' (University of Leeds, UK), ''Softblow'' (Singapore), ''Rattle'' (US) and ''Poetry at Sangam'' (India), among others. His poems have been anthologized in ''Eclectica Magazine Best Poetry'' (Eclectica, 2016), ''40 Under 40: An Anthology of Post-Globalisation Poetry'' (Paperwall, 2016), ''A Map Called Home'' (Kitaab, 2018) and ''Witness: The Red River Book of Poetry of Dissent'' (Red River, 2021). In 2013, he was conferred with the Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize, administered jointly by the Srinivas Rayaprol Literary Trust and the Department of English, University of Hyderabad. In 2014, he received a Toto Funds the Arts award for Writing in English. In 2015, Vatsa was awarded the Charles Wallace Writing Fellowship at the University of Stirling, UK. At the age of 23, he became the youngest Charles Wallace Fellow in the history of the fellowship.

Bibliography

* 2021: ''Tales of Hazaribagh: An Intimate Exploration of Chhotanagpur Plateau'' (Non-fiction) * 2017: ''Wingman'' (Poetry) * 2014: ''Painting That Red Circle White'' (Poetry)

Awards and recognition

* 2022:

Yuva Puraskar * 2015: Charles Wallace Fellowship * 2014: Toto Funds Arts Award * 2013:

Srinivas Rayaprol Srinivas Rayaprol (born R.S. Marthandam; October 25, 1925December 7, 1998) was an Indian poet who wrote in English. His father was the influential Telugu poet Rayaprolu Subba Rao Rayaprolu Subbarao (1892–1984) was among the pioneers o ...

Poetry Prize

References

Poets from Jharkhand Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century Indian poets Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar Indian memoirists 21st-century travel writers Ramjas College alumni {{India-writer-stub