Sudesh Mishra spent his formative years living in the cane-farming area of Nadi before attending the University of the South Pacific. Arriving in Australia in 1979, he subsequently undertook studies at Wollongong University (New South Wales) and Flinders University (South Australia). By the time he published his first selected work of poetry, Rahu (1987), Mishra had been established in Australia for a number of years. His poetry has since appeared in three further publications, Tandava (1992), Memoirs of a Reluctant Traveller (1994) and Diaspora and the Difficult Art of Dying (2002). A prodigious poet, Mishra's writing has appeared in numerous Australasian and South Asian literary journals. He has also written two plays, 'The International Dateline' and the political drama 'Ferringhi : A Play in Seven Lilas', as well as several short stories; both plays were anthologised in Beyond Ceremony : An Anthology of Drama from Fiji (2001).
Intently 'engaged with the subaltern studies group and post-colonial critics', Mishra has worked as a senior lecturer in the School of Creative and Communication Studies at Deakin University (Victoria). In addition to poetic works, Mishra's publications include his PhD theses, Uprooted Casuarina : Modernism and Indian Poetry in English (1989) and Preparing Faces : Modernism and Indian Poetry in English (1995), and Diaspora Criticism (2006). A founding editor of the journal Dreadlocks : In Oceania, Mishra also co-edited Trapped : A Collection of Writing from Fiji (1992).
(Source: Eugene Benson and L. W. Conolly (eds) Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English, 2005.)
