Bhai (writer)
James Ramlall, also known as Bhai (born January 26, 1935) is a Surinamese poet.
Biography
He was born in the former district Suriname, studied in the Netherlands (Dutch language and literature and pedagogy) and India (philosophy and religion), and wrote his doctoral thesis on "The Problem of Being in Heidegger and Sankara".
He became Assistant Director of Culture and later director of Culture of the Surinamese Ministry of Education and Culture, and showed himself very active in the cultural world, including as founder of the conference center "Caribbean Centre" in Lelydorp.
He wrote poetry in Hindi and Dutch in the magazine Soela, philosophical and meditative. The Dutch work was bundled into Vindu (Hindi for: Secret, 1982) from which the concrete-imaging of his earlier poetry completely disappeared. For this bundle, Bhai received the Literature Prize of Suriname 1980-1982. Since then he turned to poetry, although he only wrote sporadic in "De Ware Tijd Literair".
In 2003, he received the Gaanman Gazon Matodja Award.
See also
References
- Michiel van Kempen, Een geschiedenis van de Surinaamse literatuur. Breda: De Geus, 2003, deel II, pp. 814-816.
- Michiel van Kempen, Surinaamse schrijvers en dichters (Amsterdam: De Arbeiderspers, 1989).