Ujjwala Jyoti Tigga (1960- ): Author Profile
Community: Kurukh (exonym: Uraon)
Born on February 17, 1960 Ujjwala Jyoti Tigga is a poet and blogger whose work centers Adivasi identity, lived experience, and resistance. Her parents were from Jharkhand but moved to Delhi, which is where Tigga was born. While Tigga was raised in the capital, her work remains deeply connected to her Adivasi roots. Poems like "Jangli Ghaas" (Wild Grass) and "Baans Ki Nanhi Si Tahni" (The Small Bamboo Shoot) interrogate the ways in which homogenizing cultures attempt to erase indigenous identity.
Writing in both Hindi and English, Tigga began publishing poems in the 1980s often under the pen name Dorothy. After a long break from writing, she returned to it in 2010 with the launch of two blogs focused on Adivasi identity: Khamosh Falak and Singi Dai.
In 2022, Tigga received the Jaipal Julius Hanna Award from the Jharkhand Bhasha Sahitya Sanskriti Akhra. This award allowed her to collect her poems, published either individually or on her bogs, into a poetry collection titled Dharti Ke Anaam Yodhha ("Unnamed Warriors of the Earth"). This collection questions and resists ideas of social stratification, inequality, and the devaluation of the Adivasi way of life. You can read a translation of the titular poem here.