Mihir Vatsa

Mihir Vatsa is a poet and writer based in Hazaribagh, India, and is interested in examining through multi-disciplinary ways the different perceptions his hometown has invited over the course of its “birth” in the early nineteenth century. He is the founder of the local collective Tales of Hazaribagh, and has spoken about the placement of his town within the network of its natural, cultural, historical, and industrial heritage, both in India and in the UK.

Winner of the Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize and Toto Funds the Arts award for Writing in India, Mihir was the 2014-15 Charles Wallace Fellow of Writing at University of Stirling. His first book of poems Painting That Red Circle White was published in 2014 by Authors Press (Delhi). He is always charmed by the possibilities of spatial presence in poetry, and is working towards making Tales of Hazaribagh an NGO sometime later in 2015.

Publications:

Painting That Red Circle White. Authors Press, 2014

Essays, Talks, and Presentations:

 “Introducing Hazaribagh: History, Culture, and Power”. March 2015. University of Stirling.

 “A Chronology of Hazaribagh”. March 2015. Durham University.

 “Hazaribagh: Heritage and Coal”. February 2014. Durham University.

 “Prehistory of Hazaribagh: Megaliths and Rock Art Sites”. December 2011. DAV Public School, Hazaribagh

 “Hazaribagh and Visual Culture: Artforms from a Plateau-town”. April 2011. Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi.

 “Hazaribagh: Nature and Culture”. January 2011. Ramjas College, University of Delhi.

 “English: A personal Essay”. Elsewhere: A Place for Writing about Place. pp 19-27.