Arun Balkrishna Kolatkar was born in 1932 in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India. He completed his early education at Rajaram High School, Maharashtra and later attended the JJ School of Art in Bombay (Mumbai) from where he emerged with a Diploma in Painting. He worked in Bombay as an art director in advertising and as a bilingual poet, writing in English and his mother tongue, Marathi. His first book of poetry,
Jejuri(1976) received the Commonwealth Poetry Prize and went into three editions; this acknowledgment helped to establish his name as one of the important Indian poets writing in English.
Before turning to writing in English, however, during the 60s Kolatkar wrote poetry in Marathi about urban life. This was strongly influenced by Surrealism, William Burroughs, Dashiell Hammett, Indian
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Citation: Pulugurtha, Nishi. "Arun Kolatkar". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 April 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2553, accessed 26 November 2024.]
