Translated from the Swedish by Anthony Barnett. P"r Lagerkvist (1891-1974) was one of Sweden's greatest, most prolific, twentieth-century novelists and short story writers. EVENING LAND is the first complete translation of Lagerkvist's ninth and final volume of poetry, the deceptively simple Aftonland (1953). An intensely private man who refused to court publicity, the author was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1951. Barnett's translation (his translation of Robert Giroux's BLANK from the French is also available at SPD) sets straight an earlier, unfinished and otherwise compromised version by W. H. Auden and Leif Sj"berg. "All things exist, only I exist no more, / everything remains, the fragrance of rain in the grass/ as I remember it and the sough of the wind through the trees, / the flight of clouds and the human heart's disquiet.// Only my heart's disquiet no longer exists"-(from "The Dead")

    The definitive one-volume Urdu text by Ghalib Lakhnavi and Abdullah Bilgrami appeared toward the end of the nineteenth century, but English translations of this text have always been censored and abridged-until now.In Musharraf Ali Farooqi's faithful rendition, "The Adventures of Amir Hamza" is captured with all its colorful action, ribaldry, and fantastic elements intact. Here is the spellbinding story of Amir Hamza, the adventurer who loves Mehr-Nigar, the daughter of the Persian emperor, Naushervan. Traveling to exotic lands in the service of his emperor, Amir Hamza defeats many enemies, loves many women, and converts hundreds of infidels to the True Faith of Islam before finding his way back to his first love. Guided by a Merlin-like clairvoyant called Buzurjmehr, protected by legendary prophets, and accompanied by his loyal friend, the ingenious trickster Amar Ayyar, Amir Hamza rides his devoted winged demon-steed, Ashqar, into combat against a marvelous array of opponents, from the deadly demon, Sufaid Dev, to his own rebellious sons.Appreciated as the seminal Islamic epic or enjoyed as a sweeping tale as rich and inventive as Homer's epic sagas, "The Adventures of Amir Hamza" is an extraordinary creation and a true literary treasure.

    Milarepa was an eleventh-century Buddhist poet and saint, a cotton-clad yogi who avoided the scholarly institutions of his time and wandered from village to village, teaching enlightenment and the path to Buddhahood through his spontaneously composed songs. Wherever he went, crowds of people gathered to hear his sweet sounding voice "singing the Dharma." The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, says the book's translator, "has been read as the biography of a saint, a guide book for devotions, a manual of Buddhist yoga, a volume of songs and poems, and even a collection of Tibetan folklore, and fairy tales." With titles like "The Salvation of the Dead," "A Woman's Role in the Dharma," and "Challenge from a Wise Demoness," Milrepa's poems are filled with fascinating tales of miraculous encounters and colorful imagery, and present a valuable insight into the living quality of Tibetan Buddhism. Central as this book is to Tibetan culture, the arcane dialect and obscurity of many original passages daunted translators for centuries; this was the first complete version of the classic to appear in the West.

    His father and uncle both led mercenary soldiers in the service of one rajah or another in Northern India. Unfortunately for Ghalib, they both died when he was young, and he had to find a way to support himself.HE FOUND HIS CALLING as a court poet, in and out of favor. When the Sepoy Mutiny took place around him, he addressed a letter to Queen Victoria, offering his services — for a price — to her.THE INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP to God took many ironic forms. As he lived next to a mosque, he said he was God's neighbor. His love affair with God was the occasion of many poems of unrequited love, of the cruel mistress. Such an erotic connection to the divine may seem alien to Western minds, but Ghalib was not alone in this personal relationship; he merely took it to its height.THE GHAZAL FORMAT of poetry is composed of a short series of two rhyming lines (not kept in the translation), each one a complete thought in itself. The resulting poem has a theme, but not continuity — much like a stand-up comic's delivery of short jokes on a topic. Ghalib was a master at double-entendres and shades of meaning; this translation aims for simplicity rather than to be overloaded with baggage.

    The selection reveals the wide range of Premchand's genius and the scope of his appeal. While most of the stories are woven against a rural backdrop, some also demonstrate an urban sensibility.

    A romantic story in the manner of Shakespeare's early comedies, the Old Arcadia also includes over 70 poems in a variety of meters and genres. This edition contains a Glossary and an Index of First Lines.

    The title story in this collection of 12 works, told by an aging beauty whose highly erotic nature is her constant undoing, ranges over all of 17th-century Japanese life. The narrator is successively wife, court lady, courtesan, priest's concubine, mistress of a feudal lord and a streetwalker. Ivan Morris, chairman of the Department of East Asian Studies and Cultures of Columbia University has done a brilliant translation, an introduction, extensive notes, bibliography and two essays on social customs of the period. Illustrated."The fine style of the writing and the clear outlines of illustrations which are not even remotely 'suggestive' give Saikaku's pornography grace adn wit and charity."       — James Kirkup

    1070 for the queen of Kashmir. Unlike those more familiar classics, this work contains no hidden moral lessons. Instead, it is an uninhibited and bawdy celebration of earthly life. This edition includes ten of the original eighteen books.

    Urushadze has also produced a popular anthology of Georgian poetry in English. Her preface explains the original metrical structure, which is so complex that sometimes it requires rhyming words to the fourth syllable. She also includes a brief list of Georgian words she retained, many of them names. An introduction by David M Lang (oriental and African studies, U. of London) puts Rustaveli and his poem in historical context. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

    'There were ten million lonely women in England Lady Delores said, and most of them were married.'Regal Lady Dolores ran the offices of the Love Department with a firm, bejewelled hand, resolving the heartaches of the lonely wives of Wimbledon with inimitable flourish and finesse.

    They give a crucial new impetus to the story of the Grail by establishing a provenance for the sacred vessel - and for the Round Table itself - in the Biblical past; and through the controlling figure of Merlin they link the story of Joseph of Arimathea with the mythical British history of Vortigern and Utherpendragon, the birth of Arthur, and the sword in the stone, and then with the knightly adventures of Perceval's Grail quest and the betrayal and death of Arthur, creating the very first Arthurian cycle. Ambitious, original and complete in its conception, this trilogy - translated here for the first time - is a finely paced, vigorous piece of storytelling that provides an outstanding example of the essentially oral nature of early prose. NIGEL BRYANT is head of drama at Marlborough College. He has also provided editions in English of the anonymous thirteenth-century romance Perlesvaus, published as The High Book of the Grail, and Chretien's Perceval: The Story of the Grail.

    The Primeval Forest is Schweitzer's own fascinating story of these eventful years—a thrilling tale of his amazingly successful attempt to practice modern medicine and surgery in the face of wild elephant raids, marauding leopards, famine, an flood—a story rich in human interest and high drama.Schweitzer describes how he and his wife, a qualified nurse, worked to establish a hospital in the steaming jungle at Lambaréné. At first they treated patients in the open air, amid unbelievably primitive conditions—with few drugs, medicines, or adequate instruments. But they worked tirelessly, caring for as many as forty cases a day, battling the misery caused by sleeping sickness, leprosy, pestilence, and plague. And, as the years went on, they gradually built a more permanent hospital to alleviate the terrible suffering of the Congo people.

    I was in sublime touch shooting off arrow after arrow. The targets were drifting across my vision and all it took was one aim and release; the arrows shot off with a swish only to hit the target where I intended it and killed the recipient of the shot. A few lefthanded shots depending on the angle of the shot where I could find the target best positioned for the shot; others right handed. The bow was drifting from one hand to the other flawlessly and the arrows were flowing out like spit from a cobra's mouth, both accurate and deadly. Before we realised there were hardly any leaders standing. By the time Jarasandha recovered, his leaders and his entire army had perished. Jarasandha gave a loud shout and invited us to come out in the open and fight like real warriors. By this time Balarama also came into the battlefield.Jarasandha did not turn back and run; he was livid and angry; he started challenging us to come down and fight like real warriors.Rama and I descended into battleground. Jarasandha was aghast to see Kids trying to defeat him. Jarasandha invited us for a duel. He said two versus one couldn't be fair in a war. Balarama moved ahead and chose mace as his weapon. He was adept at mace and Jarasandha was no less a mace warrior. The fight that took place was of a quality that I wouldn't witness for a long time to come. Jarasandha was more than accomplished. While Jarasandha unleashed himself upon Balarama with full force and vigour, Balarama was deftly defending himself. Mace was flying into Rama from all directions. Balarama was saving his energy for the future; if he could wear Jarasandha down, he could then unleash himself upon him. Balarama was not through and through defensive. There would be moments when he surprised Jarasandha by his speed and power.Rama's mace would start banging into Jarasandha with immense strength and speed. Before Jarasandha would recover from one bout of attack the second one would begin in a different style of attack. The lesson and practice with our Guru was paying results; I could see that in this bout. Jarasandha couldn't fathom the skill level of Rama. He had thought it would be child's play and he would crush Rama in no time and head for me. But this challenge was more than what he had imagined. The fact that his theory proved wrong gave him the mental agony which the real fight had not given. That agony was showing in his inconsistent fighting method. He would burst at Rama; Rama would easily read the move and defend himself; that would frustrate Jarasandha; he would change his move, which Rama easily anticipated and countered, Jarasandha would get more frustrated and soon he lost his mace to a vicious shot by Rama. Now it was Rama with his mace facing an unarmed Jarasandha.Rama shouted at me and said he wanted to finish this fight right away, and lifted his mace to hit Jarasandha. I stopped Rama, it's unfair to kill someone who is unarmed on a battlefield. I said another day would come and he had to let him go with honour.

    He recounts the perilous journey of the world’s birds to the faraway peaks of Mount Qaf in search of the mysterious Simorgh, their king. Attar’s beguiling anecdotes and humor intermingle the sublime with the mundane, the spiritual with the worldly, while his poem models the soul’s escape from the mind’s rational embrace.Sholeh Wolpé re-creates for modern readers the beauty and timeless wisdom of the original Persian, in contemporary English verse and poetic prose.

    On the brink of total victory, the black horde mysteriously vanished, leaving terrified survivors . . . and rumors. As the centuries passed, the holocaust faded into legend, and finally myth. But death is stalking heroes once more, and the ultimate army has already been unleashed.The only hope lies in destroying the source—before all life is extinguished. Fate has chosen Elseerian for the impossible feat, but as he embarks on the harrowing journey the invasion must be delayed. With time as their only weapon against extinction, the elves issue a desperate call . . . for every race to ally. Facing annihilation, many will realize that survival lies in unity, courage sleeps in ordinary citizens, and average people can turn the tide of war.But even if the world can gather in the name of survival, the best they can last is Seven Days . . .The Second Draeken War is a combined edition of Elseerian, The Gathering, and Seven Days, and marks the first trilogy in The Chronicles of Lumineia.