A.K. Ramanujan (1929-1993) was, arguably, modern India's finest English-language poet. This volume of his "Collected Poems" includes poems out of the three books he published during his lifetime, and a fourth collection never published before. It is intended for: readers of Indian poetry in English,[...]
Poet, translator, folklorist, A.K. Ramanujan has been recognized as the world's most profound scholar of South Asian language and culture. This book brings together 30 essays on literature and culture written by him over a period of four decades. The volume also contains notes on each essay as well [...]
How is it that this woman's breasts glimmer so clearly through her saree? Can't you guess, my friends? What are they but rays from the crescents left by the nails of her lover pressing her in his passion, rays now luminous as the moonlight of a summer night? These South Indian devotional poems show [...]
"Speaking of Siva" is a selection of vacanas or free-verse sayings from the Virasaiva religious movement, dedicated to Siva as the supreme god. Written by four major saints, the greatest exponents of this poetic form, between the tenth and twelfth centuries, they are passionate lyrical expressions o[...]
Folktales from India is an enchanting collection of one hundred and ten tales translated from twenty-two different languages, by turns harrowing and comic, sardonic and allegorical, mysterious and romantic. Gods disguised as beggars and beasts; animals enacting Machiavellian intrigues: sagacious jes[...]
Poet, translator, folklorist A. K. Ramanujan has been recognised as the world's most profound scholar of South Asian language and culture. In this volume, A. K. Ramanujan translates old Tamil poems selected from anthologies compiled around two millennia ago. This edition contains a new preface by Mo[...]