Shrinivási (12 December 1926 – 26 January 2019) was a Surinamese poet. Martinus Haridat Lutchman was born in

Kwatta Kwatta is a resort in Suriname, located in the Wanica District. Its population at the 2012 census was 14,151. Kwatta is named after a former cocoa plantation located here. It used to be an agriculture area, but due to its close proximity of Para ...

Suriname Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north ...

and a teacher by profession. In 1949 he moved to

Curaçao Curaçao ( ; ; pap, Kòrsou, ), officially the Country of Curaçao ( nl, Land Curaçao; pap, Pais Kòrsou), is a Lesser Antilles island country in the southern Caribbean Sea and the Dutch Caribbean region, about north of the Venezuela coast ...

where his earliest poetry was published as Fernando in the magazine ''Caraïbisch Venster''. Lutchman decided to change his pseudonym to Shrinivási which means noble resident of Suriname, and published in ''Tongoni'' (1958-1959), ''Soela'' (1962-1964) en ''Moetete'' (1968). His first publication of a collection of poetry was ''Anjali'' in 1963. His best known collections are ''Pratikshā'' (1968), ''Om de zon'' (1972), and ''Sangam'' (1992). The majority of poems were written in

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

with the occasional poem in

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

, but ''Pratikshá'' (1968) contains the first poetry ever publiced in

Sarnami Caribbean Hindustani is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Indo-Caribbeans and the Indo-Caribbean diaspora. It is mainly based on the Bhojpuri and Awadhi dialects. These Hindustani dialects were the most spoken dialects by the Indians who came as i ...

. His poetry is mainly about the fortunes and misfortunes of his native Suriname. Shrinivási tried to reconcile the prevailing opposites in his native country. In 1963, Shrinivási returned to

. Later he became a nomad alternating between Suriname, Curaçao, and the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. The only known

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...

written by Shrinivási is ''Sint Annabaai''. In 1974 he was awarded the Gouvernor Currie Prize. He received the Suriname State Prize for Literature (1989-1991) for ''Sangam''.

References

External links

Shrinivási at the Digital Library for Dutch Literature
(in Dutch. ''Wortoe d'e tan abra'' and ''Een weinig van het andere'' available for free download)
Shrinivási at the Werkgroep Caraïbische Letteren
(in Dutch) {{DEFAULTSORT:Shrinivási 1926 births 2019 deaths Dutch poets Hindi-language poets People from Wanica District Surinamese poets