Meary James Thurairajah Tambimuttu (15 August 1915 – 23 June 1983) was a Tamil poet, editor, critic and publisher, who for many years played a significant part in the literary scenes of London and New York City.
Among those published by Tambimuttu were Lawrence Durrell, Kathleen Raine, W. H. Auden, Gavin Ewart, Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, Roy Campbell, Robin Skelton, Keith Douglas, Norman Nicholson, and many other notable writers.
[3] In July 1943 he set up the publishing house Editions Poetry London, which published Elizabeth Smart's By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, David Gascoyne Poems 1937-1942, Lawrence Durrell's Cefalu, Henry Miller's The Cosmological Eye and Sunday After the War, Vladimir Nabokov's The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Keith Douglas' Alamein to Zem Zem, and Cleanth Brooks' Modern Poetry and the Tradition.
In 1943, Tambimuttu commissioned the young artist Lucian Freud to illustrate a book of poems by Nicholas Moore entitled The Glass Tower.
Tambimuttu returned to Ceylon in 1949, and in 1952 moved to the United States, where he worked as an editor, launching Poetry London – New York (1956–60),[3] the last issue 5 including American Beat poets.