Ashwani Kumar is a poet, author, editor, curator and professor at Tata Institute of Social Sciences Mumbai. Widely published, anthologized and translated into several Indian languages, his major poetry volumes include ‘My Grandfather’s Imaginary Typewriter’ and ‘Banaras and the Other’, and ‘Architecture of Alphabets’ in Hungarian. Kaláka Ensemble by the Hungarian band has performed his Banaras poet @ Times Literature Festival (Mumbai) and G5A Foundation for Contemporary Culture, Mumbai. Recently, he has edited ‘Rivers Going Home’, a major anthology of Indian poetry.

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He is author of the acclaimed non-fiction ‘Community Warriors” (Anthem Press; London), and one of the chief editors of ‘Global Civil Society’ at London School of Economics and ‘Migrants, Mobility andCitizenship in India (Routledge 2021). He has served as the jury of fiction for Tata Literature Live 2020, and co-founder of Indian Novels Collective, an initiative to popularize translation of classic novels of Indian languages. He is also cocurator of prestigious Chandrabhaga Poetry Festival @ Odisha and member of Advisory Board of BADAL- Bastar Academy of Dance & Literature, Government of Chhattisgarh, and one of the Asia’s Feature Five’ poets to Asia Pacific Translator’s Translator Fest 2019.

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He is also a visiting fellow at leading global universities and think tank including London School of Economics, German Development Institute, Korea Development Institute, University of Sussex, Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology. In his policy advisory role, he has served as member of Central Employment Guarantee Council (Govt of India), and done monitoring of implementation of MGNREGA in more than twenty states in India. In leisure, he writes columns in the Financial Express, Outlook India, the Hindu, Times of India among others. He has a PhD in political science from University of Oklahoma (USA).