Chandrakant Shah

Chandra Kant Shah was Born in 1956, Chandra Kant Shah is a Boston-based Gujarati poet and playwright. Shah’s other roles include those of actor, theatre director, producer, scriptwriter, and journalist. He is the Artistic Director of the Avantar Theatre Group of Boston. He has also written several documentaries and short films, one of which won the National Award for Best Experimental Film in 1982. He also conceptualized and produced an independent American film entitled Quarter life Crisis in 2006. 

Shah is an executive committee member of the Gujarati Literary Academy of North America and President of Gurjar, the Gujarati Association of New England. As a national sponsor of Gujarati plays from India, he organizes shows all over the USA and Canada. Shah’s first book of poems, Ane Thoda Sapna (And Some Dreams),he won the award for the Best Collection of New Gujarati Poems published in 1992-1993 by the Gujarati Sahitya Parishad.

Both his collections of poetry have been prescribed as textbooks for master students by SNDT University, Mumbai. Chandra Kant describes himself as a risk taker. As a poet, he declares he is committed to resisting the seductive traps of commercial Gujarati theatre and sees himself as a threatening voice, still young and exploratory, but one that has already disturbed the Next Generation of Gujarati poetry.