Hoshang Dinshaw Merchant (born 1947) is an Indian poet. He is a preeminent voice of gay liberation in India and modern India’s first openly gay poet. Merchant is best known for his anthology on gay writing titled Yaarana.

Early years and education

Merchant was born in 1947 to a working class Zoroastrian family in Mumbai, India. He was educated at Xavier's Lads Academy and St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. He has a Masters from Occidental College, Los Angeles. At Purdue, he studied Renaissance and Modernism, and for his PhD (1981), wrote a dissertation on Anaïs Nin. He has lived and taught in Heidelberg, Jerusalem and Iran where he was exposed to various radical movements of the Left. Merchant is openly gay and is as old as India' independence. Writers Workshop in Kolkata, India has published seventeen books of his poetry since 1989. Rupa and Co. published his book of poems Flower to Flame in 1992 in the New Poetry in India series. The Rockefeller got him Bellagio Blues (2004). Yaraana: Gay Writing from India (Penguin, 1999), Forbidden Sex/Texts (Routledge, 2009), Indian Homosexuality (Allied, 2010), The Man Who Would Be Queen: Autobiographical Fiction (Penguin, 2012) and Sufiana: Poems (2013) are among his notable works.

Teacher, poet and critic

Since the mid-80s, Hoshang Merchant has made his home in Hyderabad, where he taught English at University of Hyderabad. He has written 20 books of poetry, and four critical studies. He edited India's first gay anthology Yaraana: Gay Writing from India. Secret Writings of Hoshang Merchant (OUP: New Delhi, 2016), edited by Akshaya K. Rath, is his most recent publication.

Works

Poetry

Critical studies

Edited

Appearances in the following poetry Anthologies

Accolades