Ranjit Hoskote (born 1969) is an Indian poet, art critic, cultural theorist and curator based in Mumbai. He has published several collections of poetry in English and a much-admired translation of the fourteenth-century Kashmiri mystic Lal Ded. As a curator he organised India’s first national pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2011. He has won the Sahitya Akademi’s awards for both poetry and translation.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Ranjit Hoskote |
| Born | 1969, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India |
| Occupation | Poet, art critic, curator, translator |
| Language | English |
| Education | Bombay Scottish School; Elphinstone College; University of Bombay (M.A. English Literature and Aesthetics) |
| Spouse | Nancy Adajania |
| Honours | Sahitya Akademi Golden Jubilee Award (2004); Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize |
| Known for | I, Lalla; Jonahwhale; India Pavilion at Venice, 2011 |
Early Life
Hoskote was born in Mumbai into a Saraswat Brahmin family with roots in Kashmir and coastal Karnataka. He studied politics at Elphinstone College and took a master’s degree in English literature and aesthetics at the University of Bombay. He began publishing poems as a student, encouraged by the poets Nissim Ezekiel and Dom Moraes.
Career
His first collection, Zones of Assault, appeared in 1991, followed by The Cartographer’s Apprentice, The Sleepwalker’s Archive, Vanishing Acts (2006), Central Time (2014), Jonahwhale (2018), Hunchprose (2021) and Icelight (2023). His poems draw on history, myth, sea voyages and the layered past of cities such as Mumbai.
I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Ded (2011), the result of twenty years’ work, presented the verses of the Kashmiri saint-poet to modern readers. In 2024 he published The Homeland’s an Ocean, translations of the Urdu poet Mir Taqi Mir.
He was art critic of The Times of India in Mumbai and later an editor at The Hindu. He has written monographs on painters including Jehangir Sabavala, Tyeb Mehta and Atul Dodiya and curated many exhibitions. With Okwui Enwezor and Hyunjin Kim he co-curated the Gwangju Biennale in South Korea in 2008, and in 2011 he curated “Everyone Agrees: It’s About to Explode”, India’s first official pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
In November 2023 he resigned from the committee choosing the artistic director of the Documenta exhibition in Germany after he was criticised there for having signed a 2019 statement about Israel; he rejected the charge of antisemitism.
Personal Life
He is married to the cultural theorist and curator Nancy Adajania, with whom he has written on contemporary art.
Selected Books
Frequently Asked Questions
When was Ranjit Hoskote born?
Ranjit Hoskote was born in 1969, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
What is Ranjit Hoskote known for?
Known for: I, Lalla; Jonahwhale; India Pavilion at Venice, 2011.
What honours has Ranjit Hoskote received?
Sahitya Akademi Golden Jubilee Award (2004); Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize.
Featured image: Ranjit Hoskote at the Jaipur Literature Festival, 2025. Photo by Sriya Sarkar, licensed under CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
