This Number Does Not Exist

Mangalesh Dabral was born in 1948 in a village of the Tehri Garhwal district (the Himalayan region). He spent all of his adult life as a literary editor for various newspapers published in Delhi and other north Indian cities. His books include five collections of poems, Pahar Par Laltein (Lantern on the Mountain, 1981), Ghar Ka Rasta (The Way Home, 1981), Hum Jo Dekhate Hain (That Which We See, 1995), Aawaaz Bhi Ek Jagah Hai (Voice Too Is a Place, 2000) and Naye Yug Mein Shatru (New-Age Enemies, 2013), and two collections of literary essays and sociocultural commentary, Lekhak Ki Roti (Writer's Bread, 1998) and Kavi Ka Akelapan (Solitude of a Poet, 2008), and a book of conversations, Upkathan (Substatement, 2014). He also published a travel account, Ek Baar Iowa (Once in Iowa, 1996), based on his experiences in Iowa, USA, where he resided for three months as a fellow of the International Writing Program in 1991. His poems have been widely translated and published in all major Indian languages and in Russian, German, Dutch, Spanish, French, Polish and Bulgarian. They have been included in various periodicals, such as Modern Poetry in Translation, World Literature Today, The Poetry Review and The Little Magazine, and the anthologies Periplus (ed. Daniel Weissbort and Arvind Krishna Mehrotra), Survival (ed. Daniel Weissbort and Girdhar Rathi), Gestures (an anthology of poems from SAARC countries) and Signatures (ed. K. Satchidanandan). Aawaaz Bhi Ek Jagah Hai was translated into Italian by Prof. Mariola Offredi under the title Anche la Voce e un Luogo. Dabral was featured in many events and festivals, including the International Poetry Festival in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and others in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Russia, and various cities in Germany. He translated into Hindi the poems of Pablo Neruda, Bertolt Brecht, Ernesto Cardenal, Yannis Ritsos, Tadeusz Rozewicz, Zbigniew Herbert, to name a few. He also worked as a consultant to the National Book Trust, India, and received a number of awards, including Shamsher Sammaan (1995), Pahal Sammaan (1998) and the Sahitya Akademi Award (2000). Dabral passed away in 2020.