Roshan Doug

Roshan Doug was born in 1963 in Jalandhar, Punjab, India, and studied English at Lancaster, Lancashire. After graduation, he took an academic post in Greece, teaching English for the British Council. On his return to Britain in 1988, he won the Cripps Hall Residential Tutorship at the University of Nottingham where he completed an MA in Modern English Literature.[7]

After working in private schools in Athens for the British Council, FE colleges and universities in London and Oxford, Doug was appointed a Visiting Professor in English at Birmingham City University in 2003. In the same year, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts for his contributions to education and literature.[8] In 2015, after winning a bursary, Doug completed his Doctorate in Education (Learning and Learning Contexts) at the University of Birmingham and went on to publish a range of papers on English in education.

Doug's first book Delusions was published in 1995. The Socialist Review described him as "a fresh and intelligent new voice in Anglo-Asian poetry". He has been anthologised by Spouting Forth (1997), Staple (2000), and Bloodaxe in their "Out of Bounds" volume of poetry (2013).

Doug's book The English-knowing Men published in 1999 was nominated for the Forward Prize for the Best Collection of that year. In 2001 the Orange Studio commissioned a collection, No I am Not Prince Hamlet, integrating themes of home, familiarity and cultural identity. In 2003, Doug was commissioned by Birmingham City University to produce a series of short elegies to commemorate the anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York. This formed a volume entitled The Delicate Falling of a God. He was shortlisted for the Asian Jewel Awards in the same year.

Doug's first collection of love poems, What Light is Light, was published by the University of Birmingham in 2012 and then "Mother India" the following year. Together with a commission from the Indian High Commission, it lead critics to conclude that his politics were shifting towards Hindu nationalism.[7][9]

The British Library has catalogued and digitalised his work along with books, interviews and audio copies of selected poems.[10]

Doug has been commissioned by numerous national and international organisations such as National Gallery London (1998), BBC Children in Need (2000), Birmingham Waterhall Gallery (2001), Martineau Place Birmingham (2001), Buckingham Palace for the Queen's 75th birthday (2001), The High Commission of India (2003), Adult Learners' Conference NEC Birmingham (2003), Embassy of the United States, London (2005), Graham Kershaw in 2005 and BBC Radio 4's Something Understood.[11][12][2]

In 2016, Doug submitted a report to the British Government; "BIC Government White Paper, Handwriting: Developing Pupils' Identity and Cognitive Skills"[13] and Runnymede Trust, The Runnymede Project, School Report, London.[14] His second romantic collection of poems Kabhi Kabhie was published in 2021 by Amazon Books, UK.

As a columnist, Doug has written articles for publications such as The Guardian, The Times, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Sunday Times, EasternEye and the BBC in-house magazine, Ariel. Doug has written a wide range of papers including "The Business of Poetry" for the North East Wales Institute of Higher Education for their conference "The Narrative Practitioner", to the prospective essay "Gandhi: a Punjabi perspective" for The London Review of Books, and "The British Schools' National Curriculum: English and the politics of teaching poetry from different cultures and traditions" for The Journal of Curriculum Studies.[15][16]

Doug has written and presented many arts documentary features for BBC such as Infinite New Verses (recorded in China 2004), Pause for Thought (Radio 2), Something Understood, A Land of Ghosts, The Asian Single Parents (London 2006), A Land of Dreams and Goblins (India 2002), Cuba Libre (Havana 2006) and The English-knowing Men on the themes in Anglo-Asian Poetry (London, 2005). His BBC programme "The Good Father" broadcast in 2004, was nominated for the Sony Radio Awards.[17] On A Good Read, he championed the works of Philip Larkin, especially his volume The Whitsun Weddings and its impact on modern poetry.