Yuyutsu Sharma


Yuyutsu R.D. Sharma is a widely travelled Nepalese-Indian poet and journalist. He was born at Nakodar, Punjab of India and grew up in Nakodar and later at Nangal Township of Shivalik Nepal ranges of Mahabharata Hills where his father worked. He moved to Nepal at an early age and now writes in English and Nepali literature. Half the year he travels extensively to read from his works and conduct creative writing workshops at various universities in the United States and Europe, but goes trekking in the Himalayas when back home.

Life and career

Sharma was educated at Nakodar under the supervision of his maternal grandfather, Dheru Ram and grew up in a very religious atmosphere with his mother, Shanti Devi and at the age of nine became a shaman as he was thought to be possessed by a serpent spirit, his family deity. He came under the impression of Naga ascetics whom his father, Madan Lal, revered, but later followed the course of Western education and received his early education first at DAV College, Nakodar, Punjab, and later at Baring Union Christian College, Batala and University of Rajasthan. Yuyutsu remained active in the literary circles of Rajasthan and acted in plays by Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Harold Pinter, and Edward Albee. Later he taught at various campuses of Punjab University, Chandigarh and Tribhuwan University, Kathmandu.
Yuyutsu quit teaching at Tribhuwan University in 1996 and opted the career of a freelance writer. He also started visiting the Annapurna region of Western Nepal regularly but only in 2006 published his work devoted to the region as The Lake Fewa and a Horse and later in 2008, Annapurna Poems, Selected and New. He also met German Photographer, Andreas Stimm at Frankfurt book fair in 2004 and his collaboration with Stimm resulted in three books of picture/poetry book in black and white, currently put thereto in a 900-page volume, Nepal Trilogy:Photographs and Poetry on Annapurna, Everest, Helambu & Langtang.
Recipient of fellowships and grants from The Rockefeller Foundation, Ireland Literature Exchange, Trubar Foundation, Slovenia, The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature and The Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature, Yuyutsu RD Sharma is a poet and translator.
He has published nine poetry collections including, Quaking Cantos: Nepal Earthquake, A Blizzard in my Bones :New York Poems', Milarepa's Bones, Helambu:33 New Poems,, Space Cake, Amsterdam, & Other Poems from Europe and America,, Annapurna Poems, and Everest Failures.
Two books of his poetry, Poemas de Los Himalayas and Jezero Fewa & Konj have appeared in French, Spanish and Slovenian respectively.
In addition, Eternal Snow: A Worldwide Anthology of One Hundred Twenty-Five Poetic Intersections with Himalayan Poet Yuyutsu RD Sharma edited by David Austell and Kathleen D Gallagher has just appeared.'
A collection of his poems in French, entitled Poèmes de l'Himalaya appeared from L'Harmattan, Paris in 2009.'.
In 2017, Amity University conferred Honorary Professorship at Amity University, Gurgaon, India.

Poetry