In the dry language of development reports and economic projections, the true misery of the 312 million who live below the poverty line, or the 26 million displaced by various projects, or the 13 million who suffer from tuberculosis gets overlooked. In this thoroughly researched study of the poorest of the poor, we get to see how they manage, what sustains them, and the efforts, often ludicrous, to do something for them. The people who figure in this book typify the lives and aspirations of a large section of Indian society, and their stories present us with the true face of development.

    A hard-drinking wild man of literature and a stubborn outsider to the poetry world, he wrote unflinchingly about booze, work, and women, in raw, street-tough poems whose truth has struck a chord with generations of readers.Edited by John Martin, the legendary publisher of Black Sparrow Press and a close friend of Bukowski's, The Pleasures of the Damned is a selection of the best works from Bukowski's long poetic career, including the last of his never-before-collected poems. Celebrating the full range of the poet's extraordinary and surprising sensibility, and his uncompromising linguistic brilliance, these poems cover a rich lifetime of experiences and speak to Bukowski's “immense intelligence, the caring heart that saw through the sham of our pretenses and had pity on our human condition” (New York Quarterly). The Pleasures of the Damned is an astonishing poetic treasure trove, essential reading for both longtime fans and those just discovering this unique and legendary American voice.

    Yet their memory of India's partition has been shrouded in silence. Kavita Puri's father was twelve when he found himself one of the millions of Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims caught up in the devastating aftermath of a hastily drawn border. For seventy years he remained silent – like so many – about the horrors he had seen. When her father finally spoke out, opening up a forgotten part of Puri's family history, she was compelled to seek out the stories of South Asians who were once subjects of the British Raj, and are now British citizens. Determined to preserve these accounts – of the end of Empire and the difficult birth of two nations – here Puri records a series of remarkable first-hand testimonies, as well as those of their children and grandchildren whose lives are shaped by partition's legacy. With empathy, nuance and humanity, Puri weaves a breathtaking tapestry of human experience over a period of seven decades that trembles with life; an epic of ruptured families and friendships, extraordinary journeys and daring rescue missions that reverberates with pain, loss and compassion. The division of the Indian subcontinent happened far away, but it is also a very British story. Many of those affected by partition are now part of the fabric of British contemporary life, but their lives continue to be touched by this traumatic event. Partition Voices breaks the silence and confronts the difficult truths at the heart of Britain's shared history with South Asia.

    Instead, she created at home small handmade books. When, in her later years, she stopped producing these, she was still writing a great deal, and at her death she left behind many poems, drafts, and letters. It is among the makeshift and fragile manuscripts of Dickinson’s later writings that we find the envelope poems gathered here. These manuscripts on envelopes (recycled by the poet with marked New England thrift) were written with the full powers of her late, most radical period. Intensely alive, these envelope poems are charged with a special poignancy—addressed to no one and everyone at once.Full-color facsimiles are accompanied by Marta L. Werner and Jen Bervin’s pioneering transcriptions of Dickinson’s handwriting. Their transcriptions allow us to read the texts, while the facsimiles let us see exactly what Dickinson wrote (the variant words, crossings-out, dashes, directional fields, spaces, columns, and overlapping planes).

    Daniel Simko's collection Autumn Sonata, has been lauded for the "simplicity and directness" of its translations, accomplished with out sacrificing the drama of Trakl's rich imagery. Suffering from manic depressive episodes and haunted by his experiences tending the wounded and dying during World War One, Trakl's poems reflect a sense of lostness: nightmare visions and disembodied voices provide an often eccentric perspective of reality. Though he yearns for deliverance, there poems do not anticipate it. Instead, they map the interior landscape of a brilliant, though troubled, spirit.

    The miracle in the mundane.One day, while browsing an antique store in Helena, Montana, photographer Tyler Knott Gregson stumbled upon a vintage Remington typewriter for sale. Standing up and using a page from a broken book he was buying for $2, he typed a poem without thinking, without planning, and without the ability to revise anything.He fell in love.Three years and almost one thousand poems later, Tyler is now known as the creator of the Typewriter Series: a striking collection of poems typed onto found scraps of paper or created via blackout method. Chasers of the Light features some of his most insightful and beautifully worded pieces of work—poems that illuminate grand gestures and small glimpses, poems that celebrate the beauty of a life spent chasing the light.

    He also wrote "India: The Siege Within".

    Set in the American Midwest, England, and India (Mumbai, Ahmedabad, rural Gujarat) the stories in Each of Us Killers are about people trying to realize their dreams and aspirations through their professions. Whether they are chasing money, power, recognition, love, or simply trying to make a decent living, their hunger is as intense as any grand love affair. Straddling the fault lines of race, class, caste, gender, nationality, globalization, and more, they go against sociocultural norms despite challenges and indignities until singular moments of quiet devastation turn the worlds of these characters—auto-wallah, housemaid, street vendor, journalist, architect, baker, engineer, saree shop employee, professor, yoga instructor, bartender, and more—upside down."Challenging assumptions, confronting power, manipulating barriers whenever possible-even at grave personal cost-Bhatt's cast surprises, inspires, frightens, beguiles, but never disappoints." ~Shelf Awareness (starred review)Most anticipated debuts of 2020 at Electric Literature, Literary Hub, The Millions, Kirkus Reviews, Entropy Magazine, Debutiful, Ms. Magazine, Bustle. Best story collections of 2020 at Bustle and Largehearted Boy. Best collections of 2020 by Asian authors at Book Riot.". . . rich debut . . . a powerful expression of the hunger for success on one's own terms." ~Publishers Weekly". . . nuanced, clear-eyed tales of unvarnished humanity. [...] A formally diverse collection with exquisitely crafted stories about longing, striving, and learning what we can control." ~Kirkus Reviews"With this powerful, complex work, Bhatt should be launched into a wider readership that is fully deserved, and the literary world should rejoice in discovering a bright new star." ~Dallas Morning News. . . you will feel that you have encountered this level of skill, craft, and complexity before in reading the masters of the short story genre--even while the author subverts what we so often encounter in the genre about notions of loss and lonely voices and who gets to tell their own stories." ~Texas Public Radio". . . Bhatt peels back shells of self-awareness, revealing understandings of the often subtle distinctions of gender, race, and family expectations that define and confine them." ~The National Book Review". . . Bhatt gets under the skin of her characters with an ease that is difficult to achieve when creating characters beyond the pale of capital and caste. [. . .] using lively, sculpted language that avoids the stilted, literary English often afflicting Indian English writing." ~The Hindu". . . variety of literary techniques of plot, style, and voice--including the refreshing second-person singular and first-person plural--Bhatt's stories effortlessly straddle class, caste, gender, and race divides spanning the US, England, and India." ~Open The Magazine"Taken together, [the stories] show Bhatt's wide range, both in theme and style, and her ability to inhabit characters who couldn't be more different from each other." ~New York Journal of Books"Interspersing loss and longing, survival and success, in an array of memories, shades, moods, dreams [. . .] Bhatt packs in a powerful compilation, rich in prose and poetry . . ." ~NRI Pulse". . . brings a range of lived experience, experimentation, and stylistic variety, which announces a seasoned practitioner rather than a newcomer to fiction." ~India Currents". . . a collection that is as important in the telling as in remembering the times we live in and the times to come." ~The Hindu Business Line"Bhatt's deliberate expansion of established tropes about Indians and the Indian diaspora deserves special accolades." ~Leonard Prize 2020 Nominations, National Book Critics Circle" . . . exploration of South Asian identity in the workplace through a wide lens instead of the traditional representations. . ." ~Puerto del Sol". . . characters who are bound to their work, either by choice or circumstance, as they attempt to thwart societal expectations and break down barriers . . ." ~Phoebe Journal". . . as compulsively readable as it is sharp and as enjoyable as it is thought-provoking [. . .] an accomplished and impressive debut." ~Vagabond City"[. . .] interact with multiple voices, listening to the struggles of various characters, and enjoying cultural details through the incredible use of language and literary techniques [. . .] the entire collection is an enlightening voyage." ~Platform Magazine"Jenny Bhatt's gorgeous stories in Each of Us Killers remind me why I love to read a good book. It is such a pleasure to be immersed in the worlds of her characters, in their hunger for love or money, and in their local and global struggles to live. With mouth-watering detail, Bhatt serves up a rich and varied feast." ~Devi S. Laskar, Author of The Atlas of Reds and Blues"The potent stories in this collection evoke the complexities of a shifting, multilingual world with great precision. Bhatt moves between countries and realities with tremendous skill and insight." ~Idra Novey, author of Those Who Knew"In a series of thrilling, beautiful stories, Jenny Bhatt moves through the moods, thoughts, subversions involved in the experience of interracial relationships, East-West communications, theft, justice, migration. The collection works brilliantly both as an evocative amalgam of insightful observations about race, class, gender, aspirations, as well as on the sentence level. Bhatt writes, "polish it carefully, till it glitters with the hope of a false diamond and refracts your stark life into a spectrum of luminous rays, lighting up the darkness briefly"-referring to a character's particular memory, but could just as well be referring to the collection as a whole." ~Chaya Bhuvaneswar, Author of White Dancing Elephants"In Each of Us Killers, Jenny Bhatt excavates her characters with incisiveness, nuance, and complexity. The cast of vibrant characters in this wonderful collection is absolutely unique and memorable." ~Karen E. Bender, author of The New Order"This is a gorgeous collection. Bhatt weaves together, with the lightest touch, profound themes--work, ambition, displacement, class, and gender, and so much more. Her plots are beautifully rendered and her scope vast; her characters and her settings come to life on the page. These stories are full of bitter heartbreak with a measure of joy--a wonderful collection from a hugely talented writer." ~Lydia Kiesling, author of The Golden State"Sex, death, redemption, betrayal--this collection has it all, from the sordid to the divine. Bhatt's vivid imagination and well-voiced characters will take you on a ride you won't soon forget." ~Mathangi Subramanian, author of A People's History of Heaven"These stories are filled with wisdom and compassion, bristling with dark occurrences and gleaming with quiet moments of joy: an enriching collection." ~Mahesh Rao, author of Polite Society"Moving, haunting stories that explore a wide range of complex social inequities and yet share an undercurrent of a deep and very human kind of longing." ~Aatif Rashid, author of Portrait of Sebastian Khan"Each of Us Killers offers up a complex portrait of our times. From caste-based violence to domestic power play, from yoga to the under-seam of real-estate development, Bhatt uses a dozen devices to examine the lives of people around us, the choices that define them and, ultimately, our selves." ~Annie Zaidi, author of Unbound, 2000 Years of Indian Women's Writing"Ambitious, sensitive, this collection locates some essential Indian truths, especially its hidden violence." ~Prayaag Akbar, author of Leila

    But when she is set up by her long-time friend, she doesn’t shy away from the possibilities. Ahad, a charming, independent, self-made man, captures her imagination, drawing her away from her disapproving sister, Juveria.Faced with sizzling chemistry and a meeting of the minds, Ahad and Rumi find themselves deep in a relationship that moves forward with growing intensity. But as her desire for the self-assured Ahad grows, Rumi struggles with a decision that will impact the rest of her life.Confronted by her scandalized sister, a forbidding uncle and a society that frowns on pre-marital intimacy, Rumi has to decide whether to shed her middle-class sensibilities, turning her back on her family, or return to her secluded existence as an unmarried woman in Pakistan.We follow Rumi from rainy London to a sweltering Karachi, as she tries to take control of her own destiny.

    Still an integral part of India's cultural and religious expression, the Ramayana was originally composed by the Sanskrit poet Valmiki around 300 b.c. The epic of Prince Rama's betrayal, exile, and struggle to rescue his faithful wife, Sita, from the clutches of a demon and to reclaim his throne has profoundly affected the literature, art, and culture of South and Southeast Asia-an influence most likely unparalleled in the history of world literature, except, possibly, for the Bible. Throughout the centuries, countless versions of the epic have been produced in numerous formats and languages. But previous English versions have been either too short to capture the magnitude of the original; too secular in presenting what is, in effect, scripture; or dry, line-by-line translations. Now novelist Ramesh Menon has rendered the tale in lyrical prose that conveys all the beauty and excitement of the original, while making this spiritual and literary classic accessible to a new generation of readers.

    Now in paperback, "Complete Short Poetry" gathers all of Zukofsky's poetry outside his 800-page magnum opus entitled" "A""--including work that appeared in "All: The Collected Short Poems, 1923-1964," the experimental transliteration (with Celia Zukofsky) of Catullus, the limited edition "80 Flowers," as well as several fugitive pieces never before collected."Zukofsky is the American Mallarm," writes Hugh Kenner, "and given the peculiar intentness of the American preoccupation with language--obsessive, despite what you may read in the newspapers--his work is more disorienting by far than his exemplar's ever was. Mallarm had a long poetic tradition from which to deviate into philology. Zukofsky received a philological tradition, which he raised to a higher power."

    Soon afterward, however, he encounters four wandering dervishes; three princes and a rich merchant, who have been guided to Turkey by a supernatural force that prophesied their meeting. As the five men sit together in the dead of night sharing their tales of lost love, a magnificent landscape reveals courtly intrigue and romance, fairies and djinn, oriental gardens and lavish feasts. A Tale of Four Dervishes (1803) is an exquisite example of fiction that provides a fascinating glimpse into the customs, beliefs and people of the time.

    Amongst the evacuees is Dinesh, whose world has contracted to a makeshift camp where time is measured by the shells that fall around him like clockwork. Alienated from family, home, language, and body, he exists in a state of mute acceptance, numb to the violence around him, till he is approached one morning by an old man who makes an unexpected proposal: that Dinesh marry his daughter, Ganga. Marriage, in this world, is an attempt at safety, like the beached fishing boat under which Dinesh huddles during the bombings. As a couple, they would be less likely to be conscripted to fight for the rebels, and less likely to be abused in the case of an army victory. Thrust into this situation of strange intimacy and dependence, Dinesh and Ganga try to come to terms with everything that has happened, hesitantly attempting to awaken to themselves and to one another before the war closes over them once more.Anuk Arudpragasam’s The Story of a Brief Marriage is a feat of extraordinary sensitivity and imagination, a meditation on the fundamental elements of human existence—eating, sleeping, washing, touching, speaking—that give us direction and purpose, even as the world around us collapses. Set over the course of a single day and night, this unflinching debut confronts marriage and war, life and death, bestowing on its subjects the highest dignity, however briefly.

    Told from the perspective of the queen, Sita, it explores ideas of right vs. wrong, compassion, loyalty, trust, honor and the terrible price that war exacts from women, children, animals and the natural world.After Sita, Rama and his brother are banished from their kingdom, Sita is captured by the arrogant King Ravana and imprisoned in a garden across the ocean. Ravana tries to convince Sita to be his wife, but she steadfastly refuses his advances. Eventually, Rama comes to her rescue with the help of the monkey Hanuman and his army, magic animals and gods. But Rama is unable to trust Sita and forces her to undergo an ordeal by fire to prove herself to be true and pure . . .The Ramayana was first written in Sanskrit by the poet Valmiki around 300 B.C. It contains important Hindu teachings and has had great influence on Indian life and culture over the centuries.

    Now, The Lost Spells, a book kindred in spirit and tone, continues to re-wild the lives of children and adults.The Lost Spells evokes the wonder of everyday nature, conjuring up red foxes, birch trees, jackdaws, and more in poems and illustrations that flow between the pages and into readers’ minds. Robert Macfarlane’s spell-poems and Jackie Morris’s watercolour illustrations are musical and magical: these are summoning spells, words of recollection, charms of protection. To read The Lost Spells is to see anew the natural world within our grasp and to be reminded of what happens when we allow it to slip away.