Mamta Sagar


Mamta Sagar is an Indian poet, writer, academic, translator, and activist writing in the Kannada language. Her writings focus on identity politics, feminism, and issues around linguistic and cultural diversity. She is a professor of Academic and Creative Writing at Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology.

Education and career

Sagar has a PhD in Comparative Literature from Hyderabad Central University. She has worked with Hyderabad Central University and Bangalore University, where she has taught Comparative Literature, Translation Studies, Kannada Literature, Feminism, and Postcolonial and Cultural Studies. Sagar received the Charles Wallace India Trust fellowship in 2015.

Notable translation work

Sagar has translated poetry, prose, and critical writings into Kannada and English. Her poems have been translated into many languages, including English, Spanish, French, Vietnamese, Galician, Maltese, Japanese, Chinese, Slovenian, Serbian, Russian, and Cebuano. Her poems have been included in textbooks from Jain University, Bangalore and the University of Kerala. Some of her poems are accompanied by music by known musicians Vasu Dixit, Bindumalini, and Sunitha Ananthaswamy. 
Sagar produced Interversions 1,2, &3, three poetry films based on her own collection of the same name, with Srishti Films as part of the Wales-India collaborative projects. She has also written and produced For Gauri, a video presentation of her poem written for Gauri Lankesh.
She has toured with Mark Gwynne Jones in India and the UK on 'Melding Voices', the UK Arts Council-funded projects. She was interviewed and included in the documentary Cultures of Resistance, directed by Iara Lee. Her poetry and interviews were showcased in Los Chicos de Mañana, a documentary directed by Javier Monero for Flying Cat Productions, Spain. A collection of her poems has been published in Spanish in Caratula. Como esto en la pagina la cancion is another collection of her poems in Spanish translated by Nicolás Suescún and Nelson Roque Valdés.
Sagar has curated many international and national poetry and theatre events in Hyderabad and Bangalore, including 'Kaavya Sanje', a multilingual community poetry event at the Bangalore Literature Festival, and she is actively involved with international poetry translation projects. She conducted a poetry workshop in Durban, South Africa in 2005.

Awards and honours