Shobhana Kumar

Shobhana Kumar is a poet, translator, and non-fiction writer. Her book of haibun, A Sky Full of Bucket Lists (Red River 2021), won the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize 2021-2022 and the Touchstone Distinguished Books Award (HM), 2021, The Haiku Foundation, USA. She and K. Srilata have co-translated I, Salma, Red River, 2023, the first translated collection of Salma’s poetry in English. Ongoing is a collaborative work of translating Thiruvasakam with noted poet, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, and another on Subramania Bharathiar, with K. Srilata. She is working on two poetry manuscripts at the moment. She has authored eight books chronicling biographies and corporate, industrial, and educational histories. Her two books of poetry were published by Writers Workshop, Kolkata. Kumar is Associate Editor of Yavanika Press, an award-winning e-publishing house, and the co-editor of haibun for cattails journal of Japanese short forms of poetry. She also works in corporate communication, branding strategy with leading advertising agencies and corporate clients, and education. Shobhana is the founder of Small Differences, an NGO that works with elderly people, abandoned people, the transgender community, and extremely vulnerable children. Since its inception in 2012, the NGO has impacted the lives of thousands of people in and around the Coimbatore region. Small Differences partners with Claylab Education Foundation and runs a one-on-one mentorship programme for disadvantaged high school children. She is on the board of trustees of several non-profit organisations.