Mukesh Kumar Williams is an internationally renowned poet, short story writer, literary critic and political analyst apart from being an erudite scholar and university teacher.  He has been the recipient of many fellowships and academic awards such as the Indian Institute of Technology, Ph.D. Scholarship, The University of California at Santa Barbara United States Information Agency Fellowship, Soka University Highest Award and the Mori Grant, Keio University-SFC Japan. Formerly of St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, he now teaches at Keio University and Soka University. He reports for the BBC, London on issues related to Indian and Japanese politics, culture, society and education.

Biography
He was born in Allahabad and completed his Senior Cambridge from St. Joseph’s Collegiate and then went on to Allahabad University from where he graduated in English Literature, summa cum laude. He was awarded the Vidharbha Jha Gold Medal for standing first in order of merit in the M.A. English literature class of 1974. He briefly taught at Ewing Christian College, Allahabad and then did his Ph.D. in American Literature from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi on contemporary Jewish-American novelists such as Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Joseph Heller, E. L. Doctorow, Chaim Potok, and Ronald Sukenick. He later worked as a lecturer in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras and then taught English at the prestigious St. Stephen’s College, Delhi. He has worked under the guidance of the late Professor Leslie A. Fiedler, Samuel Clemens Professor of English at SUNY, Buffalo, Professors William Mulder, Utah State University and V. N. Arora, IIT Delhi on his doctoral research. He was a visiting scholar on a U.S. Government grant to the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Teaching Experience
Mukesh Williams has taught English poetry (from Geoffrey Chaucer to T.S. Eliot) English fiction (from Daniel Defoe to D.H. Lawrence), English prose (from Joseph Addison to Jonathan Swift) and English drama (especially Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare) for nearly two decades at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi. During this time he has also been the editor-in-chief of the College magazine, The Stephanian, writing regular editorials on sundry issues. He was also the President of the Shakespeare Society at St. Stephen’s College and produced and acted in the Shakespeare’s play Troilus and Cressida.

He is a versatile teacher and has taught English language, English literature, history and related disciplines at both Indian and Japanese universities. For over a decade he has taught South Asian Studies, American Studies, Asian Security, media, language, TOEFL, literature, and academic writing  courses to undergraduate and graduate students at Keio University and Soka University. He has published over 52 research papers, dozens of editorials, 70 poems, three books, and attended 15 international conferences. He has over 25 years of teaching experience at St. Stephen’s College Delhi, Keio University-SFC and Soka University.

Books
Mukesh Williams has been described by some literary critics as both an Asian and international poet. The evocative lyricism and controlled cynicism in his poetry has to do in large measure with his childhood experiences in the sylvan surroundings of Allahabad, India and his expatriate experiences in urban Tokyo, New York, Santa Barbara and other places. Born in an Indian Christian family in Allahabad, he grew up in the multi-religious environment of Civil Lines and George Town. Early in life he developed a syncretistic approach to culture and civilization that allows him to incorporate the mythical liquefaction of the Ganga River, the shehnai of Bismillah Khan and the ethos of cathedrals and churches. His ability to synthesize disparate cultural and religious traditions finds expression in the choice of words, themes, metaphors and symbols. His free verse and satirical poems are as engaging as his rhymes and haiku. Some of his symbols relating to life, energy, death and moksha are drawn from the philosophies and mythologies of both the Asian and European worlds. It is possible to see in his oeuvres the influence of philosophers like Nietzsche, Foucault, MacIntyre, Derrida, Krishnamurti, Feyerabend, Rorty, Hayden White and others. Williams is best known for his flowing rhythms, mellifluous sounds and intellectual sophistication in poetry. His poems deal with the native traditions of India and the diasporic experiences of  people living in the United Kingdom, Lebanon, United States and Japan capturing the essence of their lonely human existence and their conflict and cooperation with social systems and institutions. 
As one reviewer of his Nakasendo and Other Poems has observed, “Williams has been able to capture the sweet, flowing rhythms of both the English and Indian vernaculars and dexterously fuse them with Japanese minimalism to create mellifluous poetry. Here we may be reminded of the early Romantics, T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound as well as some of the Bengali poets like Rabindranath Tagore and Bishnu Dey and Japanese poets like Ogiwara Seisensui and Takahashi Shinkichi.” His recent poems show a dexterous use of metaphors, and an insider’s perspective of important cities of the world like Delhi, Tokyo and Santa Barbara. He believes that artistic representation must take place through the medium of language where both the denotation and connotation of words play an important role. Williams points out that, “It is always difficult to represent our feelings though words. Sometimes the poet is so caught up in observing this process that he forgets to represent the experience itself. The final goal of the poet, however, must be to encompass the universe itself, for the creative process will not accept anything less.”  His poetry combines the emotional intensity and minimalism of the east and rational clarity and egalitarianism of the west. A truly postmodern writer, his poems have not only inspired the young generation around the world, but also given a new vigor to Indian aesthetics and Indian writing in English, per se.
His poetry, especially his two books of poems, Nakasendo and Other Poems (2006) and Moving Spaces, Changing Places (2007), “reverberate with the unrealized potential of the universe.” He has published poems in both national and international journals such as Campus Poetry, Youth Times, Indian Verse, The Journal of Indian Writing in English, Muse India, Centrifugal Eye, The Blue Fog Journal of Poetry, Foliate Oak, Plankton, and Best Poem: A Literary Journal. His works have been quoted in reputed journals around the world.  Professor Shyamala A. Narayan mentions his book Nakasendo in an article entitled ‘India’ in The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, Volume 42, Issue 4, 2007 pp. 79-107. Williams is now working on three books of poems namely Bharatvarsha, The French Café and The Ganga.

His academic studies include  published research papers on American Studies, American literature, foreign policy, race relations, Empire Studies, multiculturalism, South Asian American literature, Caribbean Literature, Derek Walcott, Asian religious traditions, linguistics, research methodology, new historicism, Japanese value-creation pedagogy, cosmological humanism, Sanskrit language, Hindu-Urdu controversy, Bengali literature, Indian Diaspora, Indian writing in English, Henry Derozio, construction of nineteenth century knowledge and Indian aesthetics.

He has edited a book Charles Dickens: Hard Times with a critical introduction (1999) and published a keynote essay, “Space as Landmark in American Literature in Landmarks” in American Literature: History in the Making, Manju Jaidka and Anil Raina eds., Prestige Books: New Delhi, 2007. His new coauthored book, Representing India: Cultures, Politics, and Identities, was released by Oxford University Press in December 2007 and reviews of the book can be read in Muse India, Business Standard,  The Telegraph, Boloji.com, Literary India and Amazon Canada. He has been quite active in setting up student and faculty exchange programs between universities in India and Japan. He can be contacted either through his official website or via the following email: mukeshwilliams@yahoo.com 

Poetry
Nakasendo and Other Poems (2006)
Moving Spaces, Changing Places (2007)

A Selection of Published Academic Essays
The Sixties and the Novels of Ronald Sukenick (1984)
The Inner Cosmic Space in Carson McCullers Novels (1995)
Jawaharlal Nehru: A Persuasive Writer of English (1996)
Memory, Death and Desire: A New Protean Consciousness in Saul Bellow’s Fiction (1996)
Soka Education: Makiguchi’s Value Creation Pedagogy (1998)
The Virtues of First Love or Emergence of An Adult Self: An Analysis of Saul Bellow’s Novella, The Actual (1999)
Redefining the American Canon: Multicultural Identities, Assimilation Ethic and American Solidarity (2000)
Ikeda’s Soka Education: Strategies for Global Harmony and Human Development (2000)
Tsunesaburo Makiguchi’s Human Life Education and Its Relevance Today (2000)
Makiguchi’s Value-Creating Philosophy and International Education (2000)
American Studies in the World: An Indian Experience (2000)
Redefining the American Canon: Multicultural Identities, Assimilation Ethic and American Solidarity (2001)
Globalizing American Studies (2001)
The Politics of Literary Space: Native American Tolerance, Jewish American Empowerment and African American Legitimization (2002)
Globalizing American Studies in the twenty-first Century and the Role of MELUS (2002)
Literary Theory, Politics and Race (2002)
In and Out of Theory: Re-imagining Law, Literatures and Races (2003)
New Historicism and Literary Studies (2003)
The Language of Gaze in Robert Herrick’s Poetry (2003)
Representing Religious Unity, Cultural Heterogeneity and National Politics in South Asia (2003)
Caribbean Literature in English (2004)
South Asian American Literature: Category, Culture and Craft (2004)
Derek Walcott (2004)
Space as Landmark in American Literature (2005)
In Ideology We Trust: Creating Landmarks in American Literature (2005)
Two Poems: “St. Stephen’s College” and “Green Pigeon” (2006)
Dialogue Across Cultures: America and Islam—The American Empire, American Studies, and Literary Culture (2006)
Redrawing the Boundaries of American Studies (2006)
Henry Derozio and the Making of Indian Literature in English (2006)
The Haiku in Japanese and English (2007)
Short Story: An English Paradise (2007)
Short Story; The Snow Leopard (2007)
Beyond the Colonial Legacy: Indian Writing in English 1794-2004 (2007)
American Studies and Some issues of Conflict and Resolution (2007)
Indian Diaspora in Japan (2007)
The Travails of Political Sloganeering in Japan (2007)
Can the Japanese Medical System be Revitalized? (2007)
Can Fukuda Resolve the LDP-DPJ Standoff (2007)
Factional Politics and People’s Interest (2007)
Fukuda or Aso: Factional Politics Within the LDP (2007)
LDP Domination has Stifled Debate in Japan (2007)
Shinzo Abe Decided to Quit (2007)
Japanese Universities Wooing Indian Students (2007)
 Indo-Japan Relations: Just Good Intentions are Not Enough (2007)
An unequal Music: Japan-India Trade Relations (2007)
The Inimitable Allahabad (2007)
Snanam in the Hindu Tradition (2007)
Japanese Affluent Society and its Malcontents (2007)
Henry Derozio’s Manifesto on the ‘New’ Indian Aesthetics (2008)
Henry Derozio and the Making of Indian Modernity Together with a
Discussion of the Fakeer of Jungheera, 1828 (2008)

Short Stories
An English Paradise, 2007 http://www.boloji.com/stories/217.htm
The Snow Leopard, 2007
http://literaryindia.com/Fiction/Short-Story/snow%20leopard.html

Short Stories for Children
Mousy, Mousy Story http://www.bolokids.com/2007/0454.htm
The Rabbit and the Mouse http://www.bolokids.com/2007/0474.htm
The Frog and Duck Friendship http://www.bolokids.com/2007/0458.htm
The Birdies and the Boy http://www.bolokids.com/2007/0475.htm
The Yajigawa Frog http://www.bolokids.com/2007/0459.htm  

Interview
 “Round Robin Interview” with Guest Editor Karla Linn Merrifield in The Centrifugal Eye, Oh Canada! Volume 2, Issue 4, Autumn 2007

Selected Extracts from Pre-Publication Evaluation and Recent Book Reviews

…you have done a most interesting job in synthesizing the diverse strains of language and imagery that are a part of your cultural heritage, India, the western classical tradition and the English language. The way in which you blend Greek allusions with Indian stories to evolve universal human feelings of love and longing is very expressive and moving.

—John G. Cawelti,
Former Professor of English, University of Chicago

The poems of Mukesh Williams reverberate with the unrealized potential of the universe. They are self-reflexive, witty, passionate, oblique, and filled with the surprise of the moment. Since these poems were never meant for publication they retain an uncontrived freshness and immediacy. I am always struck by his openness to new topics, to new experiences and to new people. I am also fascinated by his open-heartedness, which is to a large extent related to his ingenuity and poetic creation. He loves nature and is intrigued by the trivial things in life—be it a face, a leaf or a train. Nothing seems to be excluded from his sharp observation He seems to easily connect disparate things and give them a special meaning. Who can say, the deepest meaning of things in this world might lie in ordinary things of life! His poetry creates a new genre, a new way of looking at familiar things. Though his poems are slightly reminiscent of traditional Japanese poetic style and sensibility, they also posses a highly intellectual quality. At times they are succinct and poignant and at others suddenly jump into witticism and subtlety. There is a typical minimalism and symbolism in his style that makes his diction racy and evokes diverse associations in the mind. His poetry reflects his innermost feelings and inspires us to transcend the mundane world of reality and enter into a world of spiritual experience even when the subject is palpably secular.

—Kaoru Kinoshita, Soka University

About Nakasendo and Other Poems, 2006
The new collection of fifty poems by Mukesh K. Williams written between 1975 and 2006 covers three decades of lived experience in eleven cities and two countries. These beautifully crafted poems possess a focus and sharpness that most Indian poetry invariably lacks. There is no glibness here but a pursuit of the mot just, the exact word, to capture the experience directly and without much ado. As Williams points out in the Acknowledgements, that these poems are directly connected to his “Indian and Japanese experiences” and support the idea of “inhabiting these two cultures.” It is precisely the fact of inhabiting the two cultures that gives a Diasporic uniqueness to these poems. The subtle interplay of Indian emotional intensity and Japanese controlled minimalism provides a fresh nuance to the imagery and a new twist to the denouement. …Nakasendo poems are a must read for those seeking a fresh perspective and a new voice.
—Gemini Yadav, Negotiating the Nakasendo, Boloji, 2007.
About Representing India: Literatures, Cultures, and Politics, 2007

The book Representing India: Literatures, Culture, Politics by Mukesh Williams and Rohit Wanchoo published from Oxford University Press, 2007 captures the ethos of both the distant past and recent present and provides a rich resource to those familiar and unfamiliar with India. The book brings together diverse areas of scholarship ranging from literary studies and historical research to subaltern, federalist and statist notions of understanding India. It also provides an understanding of the way the nation has been represented over the decades and the way South Asian scholars themselves have constructed their past and present. The book also provides exhaustive analyses of the rise of Sanskrit, the contributions of the Orientalists, the ideas of the Anglicists, the modernization of regional languages, the Hindi-Urdu controversy and the hardening of religious identities in the political domain and the emerging South Asian diaspora….
The book is easy to read as it handles difficult concepts in a simple, lucid manner. The footnotes provide more information and cross-references to various topics dealt with in the book and can be useful in exploring any topic further. Representing India can prove to be an excellent guide to students who wish to understand the diversity of India and write a research paper on some of its aspects such as the Indian vernaculars, English language, English literature, Hindi media, politics, caste, religions, identities or Diaspora. The book will be of great value to both the student and researcher who would like to see a synthesis of diverse literary and critical approaches representing and analyzing India. The book can prove to be a valuable addition to the growing knowledge on and about India. It must be read.

—Ruchika Mohan, Representing India: Des and Pardes, Boloji, 2008 

The present work achieves that unity to a large extent, and it is to the authors’ credit that they do it without suppressing opposite views or silencing debates. In fact, debates form the core of this book: debates about Indian identity, the past and future forms of the state, the origin and usage of languages and literatures, the role of the media in reflecting and constructing society, and finally, the evolution of the South Asian diaspora and its influence on India. The authors guide the reader through these debates, introduce the main issues, link proponents to their views, add their own comments, and thus leave the reader with enough resources to explore these issues further….The book is aptly titled: many have pointed out that South Asians have been represented more by others than by themselves, and this book traces the contours of how this has changed in the decades after independence. The themes taken up in the book are necessarily wide ranging, and ‘representation’—crucially, by South Asians themselves—is the magic thread that ties up all the chapters into a coherent whole. The foregrounding of this issue of representation has the additional merit of facilitating an interdisciplinary study which is rather rare in South Asian academia…Every book has its audience, and some appeal to many simultaneously. This book falls, for the reasons listed above, in the latter category, and as an exercise in academic stocktaking it is likely to stand the test of time. The authors also list some issues that they have not included in this volume: the politics of gender, the debates around environment, and the effects of globalization on modern India. In view of their nuanced and competent handling of the issues contained in this volume, one hopes that they will come up with a companion volume soon.
—Devika Sethi in Muse India, March-April 2008, Stocktaking the Nation’s Achievements—A Non-Partisan Enterprise
Intellectualism is not dead yet, and its relevance is still valid even in this information superhighway. Historians and academics Mukesh Williams and Rohit Wanchoo present a strong case for the revival of the well-reasoned argument, with an analytical study of the critical aspects of modern, post-colonial Indian culture society. The book gathers intellectual discourse and thought-provoking debate from many esteemed scholars on Indian language, Indian English literature, media, Hindutva politics, religion and the South Asian diaspora, in that order. The best reads in this collection are, understandably, on the least understood subjects: the evolution of the “primary Indian language”, and the question of Indian religious identity….While no leisurely read, this is a valuable work that becomes useful in understanding India’s inherent makeup and substance, beyond the superficial, overhyped media perceptions of a third world country-turned-emerging Asian tiger, famous for its movies, cricket, and IT talent.
--Steya Ray, Bringing back the intellectual discourse, Business India, March 30, 2008
What this book does is to connect some of the myriad ‘little Indias’ that coexist within the huge fold of the Indian reality. There cannot be any “thematic unity” here, however the authors may search for it. The only unity, if any, is to be sought in the incompatibilities that disturb a pre-formulated pattern of identity-formation, whether based on religion, language, territory or anything else.
—Arnab Bhattacharya, In Search of little Indias, The Telegraph, Calcutta March 28, 2008
Surprisingly, the book was an excellent read. It is written in a succinct and clear prose and captures the most significant debates and theories about India in the last two decades. It brings into focus the colonial and postcolonial representations of India in literature, politics, history, languages and the media. The book brings together diverse intellectual traditions that have shaped the presentation and representation of India. Both the scholar and student of India can profit by the erudite scholarship of the two authors, which is evident in every page. The footnotes and references are quite helpful in exploring the topics further.
—James, Presenting and Representing India, Amazon Canada, January 5, 2008
External Links
Official Web site at http://beyond-the-shadows.blogspot.com/
Read Robin Round Interview with Mukesh Williams, Asian Poet
http://home.earthlink.net/~tinyviolet/thecentrifugaleyepoetryjournal/id285.html
Read a poem “Canada and India” in The Centrifugal Eye, http://home.earthlink.net/~tinyviolet/thecentrifugaleyepoetryjournal/id282.html
Read a poem “An Incommensurable World” in Best Poem
http://bestpoem.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/mukesh-williams-3/
Read a haiku in Asaihi.com, July 7-8, 2007
http://www.asahi.com/english/haiku/070709.html
Read two poems in The Blue Fog Journal, July 2007 Namaste Fiji
Read poems, opinions, short stories at
http://www.boloji.com/writers/mukeshwilliams.htm
Visit his blog site at http://www.beyond-the-shadows.blogspot.com/
Read book reviews of Representing India in Muse India, Boloji.com, Literary India, The Telegraph and Business Standard
http://www.museindia.com/showcurrent7.asp?id=894
 also at http://www.boloji.com/bookreviews/138.htm
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080328/jsp/opinion/story_9059913.jsp
http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?leftnm=5&subLeft=6&chklogin=N&autono=316038&tab=r
http://literaryindia.com/Literature/World-Literature/Book-Reviews/Representing%20the%20Indian%20Nation%20and%20Its%20People.html
A book review of Nakasendo and Other Poems in Boloji.com http://www.boloji.com/bookreviews/115.htm
Poems by Mukesh Williams in Foliate Oak, March 2008, Volume 4, Issue 2
http://www.foliateoak.uamont.edu/March-08/poetry/two-poems-by-mukesh-williams
Read his poems at Other Voices of Poetry
http://www.othervoicespoetry.org/vol30/williams/index.html
Book reviews:
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080328/jsp/opinion/story_9059913.jsp