Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala'

Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala' (21 February 1896 – 15 October 1961) was one of the most famous figures of the modern Hindi literature. He was a poet, novelist, essayist and story-writer. He also drew many sketches.

Nirala pioneered the Chhayavaad movement along with Jaishankar Prasad, Sumitranandan Pant and Mahadevi Varma. Nirala's Parimal and Anaamika are considered as the original Chhayavaadi Hindi literature. He was unrecognised during his life. His style of poetry, revolutionary for his time, often was unpublished due to its unconventional nature. He voiced his protest against exploitation through his verses. He amalgamated Vedanta, nationalism, mysticism, and love for nature and progressive humanist ideals in his works. The sources of his themes include history, religion, nature, Puranas and contemporary social and political questions. He initiated the use of blank verse in his poems. He introduced aesthetic sense, love of nature, personal viewpoint and freedom of form and content in writing which went on to become the chief tenets of Chhayawad. His multifaceted genius, which ushered in a new style of poetry, acquired him a pseudonym, Nirala (unique). His poem Saroj Smriti is one of the greatest, showing his emotions and sentiments for his daughter.

Nirala is also credited with bringing in free verse in the modern Hindi prose. His thinking was influenced by Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa and Swami Vivekananda and in the literary field by Michael Mudhusudan Dutt and Rabindranath Tagore.