At Purdue, he studied Renaissance and Modernism, and for his PhD (1981), wrote a dissertation on Anaïs Nin.
He has lived and taught in Heidelberg, Jerusalem and Iran where he was exposed to various radical movements of the Left.
Rupa and Co. published his book of poems Flower to Flame in 1992 in the New Poetry in India series.
[clarification needed] Yaraana: Gay Writing from India (Penguin, 1999), Forbidden Sex/Texts (Routledge, 2009), Indian Homosexuality (Allied, 2010), The Man Who Would Be Queen: Autobiographical Fiction (Penguin, 2012) and Sufiana: Poems (2013) are among his notable works.
[9] Secret Writings of Hoshang Merchant (OUP: New Delhi, 2016), edited by Akshaya K. Rath, is his most recent publication.