Vijay Seshadri wins 2014 Pulitzer Prize

Indians can proud this moment by the news that India-born poet Vijay Seshadri has won the prestigious 2014 Pulitzer Prize in the poetry category for his collection of poems "3 Sections."

Yesterday, the 98th annual Pulitzer Prizes announced by Columbia University. It includes Journalism, Letters, Drama and Music

Mr Seshadri's '3 Sections' is a "compelling collection of poems that examine human consciousness, from birth to dementia, in a voice that is by turns witty and grave, compassionate and remorseless," the announcement said.

Mr Seshadri would receive USD 10,000 reward -Columbia University alum

The prize for the poetry category was given for a "distinguished volume of original verse" by an American author.

As per the Pulitzer website Mr Seshadri was born in Bangalore in 1954 and he came to America at the age of five and grew up in Columbus, Ohio. He currently teaches poetry and nonfiction writing at liberal arts college Sarah Lawrence in New York.

Mr Seshadri has received may grands and awards, grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Paris Review's Bernard F Conners Long Poem Prize award and the MacDowell Colony's Fellowship for Distinguished Poetic Achievement are among them.

Mr Seshadri is the fifth person of Indian origin to bag the prestigious award and the first being Gobind Behari Lal in 1937. Indian-American author Jhumpa Lahiri got Pulitzer for fiction in 2000 for her collection of stories "Interpreters of Maladies". Geeta Anand, journalist-writer of Indian origin was the next to get the award. Ms Anand was the investigative reporter and feature writer for the Wall Street Journal and won the award in 2003 for "clear, concise and comprehensive stories that illuminated the roots, significance and impact of corporate scandals in America".

Indian-American physician Siddhartha Mukherjee's acclaimed book on cancer, 'The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer,' won the 2011 Pulitzer prize in the general non-fiction category.


Mr Seshadri's collections of poems include :
- James Laughlin Award winner The Long Meadow and Wild Kingdom (1996)
- His poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in prestigious publications including the American Scholar, the Nation, the New Yorker, the Paris Review, Yale Review, the Times Book Review, the Philadelphia Enquirer and in many anthologies, including Under 35