Anna Sujatha Mathai spent most of her growing-up years in Delhi as her father was then Head of the English Department at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University. She completed her English Honours at Miranda College. Her great passion and dream was theatre. She won several drama prizes at the college, and later, at the university. But marriage at the age of 20 put an end to her dreams. As her husband was working for his FRCS exam, the couple were in Edinburgh, and Sujatha took a post-graduate degree in social studies there. Later, she worked in this field. Working with troubled people in-depth may have enlarged her understanding of human conflict and suffering more than she had realised at the time. After working in Sheffield, York and London, Sujatha’s husband (and his family in Delhi) was keen for them to get back to India. 

Her first poems were published in P. Lal’s  Anthology of Modern Indian Poetry, 1969. By then, she had moved to Bangalore along with her husband. Their marriage ended in divorce after the birth of their son. She joined some Theatre Groups, played some leading roles, and later, founded, with Snehalata Reddy, the Abhinaya Poetry/Theatre Group. She is also the recipient of CIP/Fulbright Scholarship. Sujatha has published five collections of Poetry in English. In 2018, the Feminist Group, Women Empowered, awarded her their First Kamala Das Poetry Prize. A rather serious, chronic illness has slowed her down, but she hopes to complete her sixth book sometime soon.