Rupi Kaur (born 4 October 1992) is a Canadian poet, illustrator, photographer, and author. Born in Punjab, India, she emigrated to Canada at a young age with her family. Kaur began performing poetry in 2009 and gained fame on Instagram, becoming a popular "Instapoet" through her three poetry collections.
In March 2015, as part of a university photography project, Kaur posted Instagram photos showing menstrual blood stains, which were removed by the platform. She wrote a viral critique of Instagram's actions, leading to increased attention for her poetry and the reprinting of her self-published debut collection, Milk and Honey (2014), which achieved widespread commercial success. Her follow-up collections include The Sun and Her Flowers (2017) and Home Body (2020), the latter influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Kaur’s work is simplistic, exploring South Asian identity, immigration, femininity, and personal experiences, often accompanied by line drawings. Milk and Honey has sold over 2.5 million copies in 25 languages and spent 77 weeks on the New York Times Best-Seller List. Despite mixed critical reception and plagiarism allegations, Kaur has been recognized on year-end lists by the BBC and Elle, and was named "Writer of the Decade" by The New Republic.
India
