Sasenarine Persaud is the author of twelve books: nine poetry collections, including Demerary Telepathy (Peepal Tree, 1989) and The Wintering Kundalini (Peepal Tree); two novels published by Peepal Tree Press, Dear Death and The Ghost of Bellow's Man, and a collection of short fiction, Canada Geese and Apple Chatney. His awards include: the KM Hunter Foundation Award (Toronto), the Epstein Fellowship at Boston University, from which he has a Master's in Creative Writing, and fiction and poetry awards from The Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council. Persaud was born in Guyana and has lived in Canada for several years. He presently resides in Florida.
His fiction was shortlisted for the Journey Prize and included in The Journey Prize Anthology: Short Fiction from the Best of Canada's New Writers, and his poetry was nominated for the Canadian National Magazine Award and the Forward Prize. His books of fiction and poetry have been shortlisted half a dozen times for the Guyana Prize.
Persaud initiated the term Yogic Realism to define his literary aesthetics and his seminal essay, "Kevat: Waiting on Yogic Realism" was published in India and, along with his work, was the focus of a PhD Dissertation. His work is widely anthologized and included in, among others: Anthology of Colonial and Post Colonial Short Fiction; Another Way To Dance: Contemporary Asian Poetry from Canada and the United States; A Rainbow Feast: New Asian Short Stories; The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories and The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse. His work is used in schools and colleges in many countries and has been translated into Italian.
He has been described as "one of those rare poets who gets the recipe of humanness exactly right" (Canadian Literature), and his poetry as "miniature raags, sensuous units of Indian music obeying conventions mysterious to western ears" (The Globe and Mail). On his fiction, The Globe and Mail writes, "Persaud's beathtaking narrative... nimbly pits self-ironizing postmodernism against the timeless values of narrative."
Author photograph © Denise Noone (Glasgow).
