Teji Grover is a Hindi poet,See http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poet/item/17742/27/Teji-Grover . Accessed on 3 April 2015. Also see, Anirudh Umat, "Some Reflections on Teji Grover's Recent Poetry", The Book Review, Vol. XXXV, No. 2 - February 2011 <http://www.thebookreviewindia.org/articles/archives-510/2011/febuary/2/some-reflections-on-teji-grovers-recent-poetry.html >, accessed on 23 April 2015; Birgitta Wallin, "Portatt av en poet i gult", Karavan, Stockholm, June 2010, pp. 118-20 (Special issue on Indian Literature); Lars Hermansson, "Nagot om hindipoesi, kari boli och Teji Grover", Lyrikvannen, Stockholm, No. 4, 2001, pp. 40-41; and Birgitta Wallin, "Bilder ur ett pagaende", Lyrikvannen, Stockholm, No. 4, 2001, pp. 52-54. fiction writer,See, Kamila Junik, "Teji Grover's Blue", Cracow Indological Studies, Vol. 12 (ed. Halina Marlewicz), Ksiegarnia Akademicka, Krakow, 2010, and Manoj Pandey, "Seven Stories of Love in Dream", The Book Review, VOL. XXXV, No. 1 January 2011 <http://www.thebookreviewindia.org/articles/archives-486/2011/january/1/seven-stories-of-love-in-dream.html >, accessed on 23 April 2015 translator and painter. According to poet and critic Ashok Vajpeyi, "Teji Grover shapes her language away from the prevalent idiom of Hindi poetry. In her poetry language acquires a form which is unique..."See, Ashok Vajpeyi's preface to Teji Grover and Rustam Singh, Teji aur Rustam Ki Kavitaen, selected poems of both poets, New Delhi: HarperCollins, , Hindi-language. Accessed on 17 April 2015. Her poems have been translated into many Indian and foreign languages.
Grover's fiction is known for its blending of dream and reality. Polish Hindi scholar Kamila Junik writes about her novel Neela (Blue), "All the characters write. All the events are being written. The existence is being written as well. There is no other world beyond writing."Kamila Junik, "Teji Grover's Blue", Cracow Indological Studies, Vol. 12 (ed. Halina Marlewicz), Ksiegarnia Akademicka, Krakow, 2010.
Through her translations, Teji Grover has introduced modern Scandinavian writers and poets to Hindi readers, such as Knut Hamsun, Tarjei Vesaas, Jon Fosse, Kjell Askildsen, Gunnar Björling, Hans Herbjørnsrud, Lars Amund Vaage, Edith Södergran, Harry Martinson, Tomas Tranströmer, Lars Lundkvist, and Ann Jäderlund, as also the French writer Marguerite Duras.
She is also an abstract painter, using organic and natural colours.Georgina Maddox, "Pen to Brush" (review of Jo Nahi Hai, solo show in Delhi), The Indian Express, 9 January 2011.
Life Teji Grover was born on 7 March 1955 at Pathankot in the state of Punjab in India.See http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poet/item/17742/27/Teji-Grover . Accessed on 3 April 2015. She taught English literature at MCM DAV College for Women at Chandigarh for over two decades before early retirement in 2003. She is based in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.
Awards and fellowships Bharat Bhushan Agrawal Award for poetry (1989);See, Bharat Bhushan Agrawal Award http://www.geocities.ws/indian_poets/hindi.html. See also, Poetry International, http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poet/item/17742/27/Teji-Grover . Accessed on 17 April 2015. Writer-in-Residence/Director, Premchand Srijanpeeth, Ujjain (1995–1997); Senior Fellow (Literature), Department of Culture, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, New Delhi (1995–1997); and Sayed Haider Raza (S. H. Raza) Award for poetry (2003);See also, The Raza Foundation: Awards, http://www.therazafoundation.org/awards.php , accessed on 26 April 2015, and Poetry International http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poet/item/17742/27/Teji-Grover , accessed on 17 April 2015. Fellow, Institute of Advanced Study, Nantes, France (2016–2017). Vani Foundation Distinguished Translator Award (2019). The Royal Order of the Polar Star, Member 1st Class, by the King and the Queen of Sweden (2019) for promoting literary and cultural relations between India and Sweden.
Work
Original work Teji Grover's individual collections of poetry are:
Yahan Kucch Andheri Aur Tikhi Hai Nadi (Bharati Bhasha Prakashan, Delhi, 1983); Lo Kaha Sambari (National Publishing House, New Delhi, 1994; ); Ant Ki Kucch Aur Kavitayen (Vani Prakashan, New Delhi, 2000); and Maitri (Surya Prakashan Mandir, Bikaner, 2008; ); Darpan Abhi Kaanch Hee Thaa (Vani Prakashan, New Delhi, 2019; ).
The second edition of the collection Lo Kaha Sambari was published by Vani Prakashan, New Delhi, in 2016 (). The second edition of the collection Maitri was published by Vani Prakashan, New Delhi, in 2020 ().
Her selected poems were published in 2021. The volume is titled Kathputli Kee Aankh: Chuni Hui Kavitaen (Surya Prakashan Mandir, Bikaner, 2021); .
Her poems also figured in the following books:
Jaise Parampara Sajate Hue (Parag Prakashan, Delhi, 1982), an anthology of poems by three fellow poets; and Teji aur Rustam Ki Kavitayen (),See, Teji Grover and Rustam Singh, Teji aur Rustam Ki Kavitaen, selected poems of both poets, New Delhi: HarperCollins, , Hindi-language. Accessed on 17 April 2015. a two-in-one, two-sided book of poems published by HarperCollins India in 2009.
The most recent publication of her poems in Hindi was in the online literary magazine Samalochan.
Grover has published two books of fiction:
a novel Neela (Vani Prakashan, New Delhi, 1999; ); and a collection of short stories Sapne Mein Prem Ki Saat Kahanian (Vani Prakashan, New Delhi, 2009; ).
The second edition of her novel came out in 2016 (Vani Prakashan, New Delhi; ).
Grover has published a collection of essays, memoirs and travelogues, another collection of essays on folktales and a book of autofiction:
Neela Ghar aur Doosri Yatrayen (Vani Prakashan, New Delhi, 2016; ); Akam se Puram Tak: Lok Kathaon ka Ghar aur Bahar (Eklavya, Bhopal, 2017; ). Tooji Sherji Aur Aatmgalp (Sambhavna Prakashan, Hapur, 2025; );
Grover has also published the following book for children:
Man Mein Khushi Paida Karne Wale Rang ().See, https://www.ektaraindia.in/product/man-mein-khushi-paida-karne-wale-rang/. Accessed on 25 November 2017. The book was published by Jugnoo Prakashan, an imprint of Takshila Publication, New Delhi, in 2020.
Translations of her work Books In 2009 the Polish translation of Teji Grover's novel Neela by Kamila Junik was published by Ksiegarnia Akademicka, Kraków, under the title Blekit (). In 2019 a collection of her selected poems was translated into Swedish and was published by Tranan, a Stockholm-based publisher. The title of the book was HUR SKA JAG SÄGA VAD SOM KOMMER (). The poems were translated by six Swedish poets and translators, namely, Ann Jäderlund, Birgitta Wallin, Lars Andersson, Lars Hermansson, Niclas Nilsson and Staffan Söderblom. In 2020 her novel Neela and the collection of her short stories Sapne Mein Prem Ki Saat Kahanian were published together in English translation by Vani Book Company, an imprint of Vani Prakashan Group, under the title Blue and Other Tales of Obsessive Love (). The book was translated by Meena Arora Nayak.
Teji Grover's poems have been translated into Indian and foreign languages including Marathi, English, Swedish, Polish, Norwegian, Catalan and Estonian. English translations of her poems have been included in the following anthologies:
Penguin New Writing in India, ed. Aditya Behl and David Nicholls (Penguin Books India, New Delhi,1992; ); In Their Own Voice, ed. Arlene Zide (Penguin Books India, New Delhi, 1993; and 9780140156430); An Anthology of Modern Hindi Poetry, ed. Kailash Vajpeyi (Rupa & Co., New Delhi, 1998; and 9788171674305); The Tree of Tongues, ed. E. V. Ramakrishnan (Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, 1999; ); Love Poems from India, ed. Meena Alexander (Everyman's Library/Knopf, 2005; ); Speaking for Myself: An Anthology of Asian Women's Writing, eds. Sukrita Paul Kumar and Malashri Lal (Penguin Books India and India International Center, New Delhi, 2009; ); and Home from A Distance, eds. Giriraj Kiradoo and Rahul Soni (Pratilipi Books, Jaipur, 2011; ).
Her poems figure in the following anthologies in foreign languages:
Swedish: Roster fraan Indien, eds. Birgitta Wallin and Tomas Lofstrom (Sveriges Forfattarforbund, Stockholm, 1997; ), and Innan Ganges Flyter In I Natten, eds. Tomas Lofstrom and Birgitta Wallin (Bokforlaget Tranan, Stockholm, 2009; );See Innan Ganges flyter in i natten : indiska dikter översatta från Hindi, Malayalam och engelska http://www.adlibris.com/se/bok/innan-ganges-flyter-in-i-natten-indiska-dikter-oversatta-fran-hindi-malayalam-och-engelska-9789186307073 . Accessed on 17 April 2015. Polish: Cracow Indological Studies, Volume VI, Literatura Indyjska W Przekladzie (Ksiegarnia Akademicka, Kraków, 2004; ); Catalan: Com espigues de blat amb vents de l'est, ed. Sameer Rawal (Cafe Central and Emboscall, Tordera in 2011; ); and Norwegian: Stemmer i Andre Hus, ed. Hanne Bramness (Cappelen Damm, Oslo, 2011; ).
Her poems have also appeared in a Marathi anthology of Hindi poetry: Sangini niwadak, Hindi stree kavita, ed. and trans. by Chandrakant Patil (Manovikas Prakashan, 2012; ).
The international literary journals in which the English translations of her poems have appeared include Poetry International Rotterdam, Rhino: The Poetry Forum, Chase Park, Modern Poetry in Translation, Hindi: Language, Discourse, Writing, Indian Literature, Paintbrush, Aufgabe and dialog.See Poetry International Rotterdam, http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poet/item/17742/27/Teji-Grover , accessed on 16 May 2015; Rhino 99: The Poetry Forum, p. 69; Chase Park, No. 7, pp. 47-51; Modern Poetry in Translation, New Series/No. 11 (Summer 1997), pp. 184-88, accessed on 16 May 2015); Indian Literature, No. 158 (November–December 1993), pp. 18-21, and No. 180 (July–August 1997), pp. 13-15; Paintbrush, Vol. XXIX (2002/2003), pp. 54-58; Hindi: Language, Discourse, Writing, Vol. 2, No. 2 (July–September 2001), pp. 31–42; Aufgabe, No. 13, pp. 32-40 (http://www.litmuspress.org/aufgabe-13/ . Accessed on 17 April 2015); and dialog, No. 26 (Autumn 2014).
The non-English international journals in which her poems have been published include Lyrikvannen (Swedish), Karavan (Swedish) and Sirp (Estonian).See Lyrikvannen, No. 4 (2001) and No. 1 (2003); Karavan, No. 2 (2008); and Sirp, No. 1 (3521) (9 January 2015). Also see, DORIS KAREVA, "Tuhandevärvine kivi".
In 2018 an issue of the Swedish journal Karavan was focused on her writing and her art-work. The issue carried an interview with her, translation of a long poem by her and two articles on her paintings.See "Teji Grover, poet som sökte sig till måleriet", Karavan, No. 4 (2018). Accessed on 25 November 2020.
Her novel Neela appeared in English translation, by Meena Arora Nayak, in the journal Hindi: Language, Discourse, Writing in 2000.See, Hindi: Language, Discourse, Writing, Vol. 1, No. 1 (April–June 2000).
Two of her short stories, "Bhikshuni" and "Suparna", have also been translated into and published in English.See, Hindi: Language, Discourse, Writing, Vol. 2, No. 2 (July–September 2001), pp. 69-74, and Pratilipi, http://pratilipi.in/2011/11/suparna-teji-grover/ , accessed on 25 April 2015, respectively.
Her short story "Su" has been translated into Croatian and published in the anthology Lotosi od neona: indijski autori o gradovima i drugim ljubavima edited by Lora Tomas and Marijana Janjic and published by Studio Tim, Rijeka, and Udruga Lotos, Zagreb, in 2017 ().
Translations by Teji Grover Teji Grover has translated into Hindi the following works:
From the Norwegian Pan, a novel by Knut Hamsun, under the title Pāna , Vani Prakashan, New Delhi, 2002. Sult, a novel by Knut Hamsun, under the title Bhookh (), Vani Prakashan, New Delhi, 2004. Knut Hamsun's memoir Paa Gjengrodde Stier, under the title Ghas Dhanki Pagdandiyan (), Vani Prakashan, New Delhi, 2014.