Chandran Nair

Chandran Nair is a Singaporean poet and retired Director and Mediator of UNESCO in Paris. Nair was born in Kerala, India in 1945. He left India for Singapore at the age of seven. His father, Villayil Raman Gopala Pillai who wrote short stories and novels in Malayalam under the pen name of Njekkad had migrated to Singapore in 1947. In 1973 Chandran Nair married Ivy Goh Pek Kien. He was educated at Raffles Institution and University of Singapore fr... more

Chandran Nair is a Singaporean poet and retired Director and Mediator of UNESCO in Paris. Nair was born in Kerala, India in 1945. He left India for Singapore at the age of seven. His father, Villayil Raman Gopala Pillai who wrote short stories and novels in Malayalam under the pen name of Njekkad had migrated to Singapore in 1947. In 1973 Chandran Nair married Ivy Goh Pek Kien. He was educated at Raffles Institution and University of Singapore from which he holds a Masters in Science (Marine Biology) and a Diploma in Fisheries (with distinction) but went into publishing on his graduation and worked as an international civil servant with UNESCO, first in Karachi (1981-1985),where he started painting, and then in Paris (1985 - 2004),where he now lives. Nair started writing at an early age and his first poems were published in his school magazine The Rafflesian in 1963. His first book of poems, Once The Horsemen and Other Poems, (University Education Press, Singapore), was published in... less