Hemant Divate

Hemant Divate is a poet, editor, publisher and translator. He is the founder-editor of the Marathi little magazine Abhidhanantar, which was published uninterruptedly for 15 years. Abhidhanantar has been credited for providing a solid platform to new poets and for enriching the post-nineties Marathi literary scene. Divate is credited with changing the Marathi literary scene through Abhidhanantar and the Indian English poetry scene through his imprint Poetrywala. He is the author of six poetry collections in Marathi. Divate’s poems have been translated into French, Italian, Slovak, Japanese, Persian, Maltese, Serbian, Slovenian, Greek, Hindi and many Indian languages. In translation, he has a book each in Spanish, Irish, Arabic, German and Estonian apart from four in English. His poems figure in numerous anthologies in Marathi and English. The most significant among these are These My Words edited by Eunice de Souza and Melanie Silgardo, The Red Hen Anthology of Indian Poetry edited by Ravi Shankar and Sampurna Chattarji, 100 Great Poems in Indian languages from the Last 3000 Years edited by Abhay K Kumar, and Kavita Antologija Sodobne Indijske Poezije (Anthology of Indian Poetry in Slovenian translation) edited by Evald Flisar and K Satchidanandan. Divate has participated in numerous international poetry and literature festivals across the globe. His publishing house, Paperwall Media & Publishing, has published (under its imprint Poetrywala) more than 100 poetry collections. Hemant lives and works in Mumbai.