Shrikant Verma (1931-86) was a central figure in the Nai Kavita movement in the late 1950s and the early 1960s. Born in Bilaspur, he did his Masters in Hindi from Nagpur University in 1956, then moved to New Delhi, where he worked in journalism and politics. Verma served as a special correspondent for Dinman, a major Hindi periodical, from 1966 to 1977. In 1976, he was elected a member of the Rajya Sabha on a Congress (I) ticket, and served as spokesman to the party through the late 1970s and early '80s. He published two collections of fiction, a novel, a travelogue, literary interviews, essays and five collections of poetry, including Jalsaghar (1973) and Magadh (1984). Verma was a visitor at the Iowa International Writing Program twice (1970-71 and 1978), and won the Tulsi Puraskar (1976), the Kumaran Asan Award, and the Sahitya Akademi Award (posthumously, for Magadh, in 1987).