Tata Lit Fest honours Vikram Seth with Poet Laureate award

Poet and novelist Vikram Seth will be conferred with a Poet Laureate Award at the upcoming Mumbai Literature Festival for "his efforts to keep the literary form of poetry alive", organisers said.
The Tata Literature Live! Poet Laureate Award 2015 award is scheduled to be presented to him on the inaugural day of the festival, October 29 at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), where the celebrated poet and novelist will also read from his works.
"It feels really nice to get appreciation and one has to accept awards with grace. One needs to be appreciative of being appreciated! I am obviously happy to receive the award!," Seth said in a statement.

The award carries a citation, silver plaque and a cash prize of Rs 3 lakh.
Seth is second recipient of the award after Joy Goswami, was conferred the honour last year.
Best known for his magnum opus novel "The Suitable Boy," (1993), Seth has published six books of poetry all of which have received much international acclaim.

His collections of poetry such as his first book of poems, "Mappings" (1980), to his next, "From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet" (1983), "The Humble Administrator's Garden" (1985), "All you who Sleep Tonight" (1990), "Beastly Tales From Here and There" (1991) and "Three Chinese Poets" (1992) are notable contributions to the Indian English language poetry canon.

He has just launched a new book of poems titled "Summer Requiem" (2015).
"In poetry, Vikram is the master of understatement; his form is miniature and intensely personal," Founder and Director, Literature Live!, Anil Dharker, said.
Dharker pointed out that the Mumbai LitFest took a major step in bringing to the forefront poets writing in India's many languages.
"It is my pleasure to announce Seth as the winner of this year's Tata Literature Live! Poet Laureate Award. The honour goes to us that he accepted this award. We're looking forward to seeing him at the festival," he said.