Poetry that’s both emblematic and enigmatic

For poetry lovers, Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1797-1869) needs no introduction. His poetry remains both emblematic and enigmatic, and his name is indelibly associated with the ghazal. However, apart from some well-known verses, the larger public is unacquainted with his body of work. In The Essential Ghalib, veteran scholar, author translator Anisur Rahman presents an exemplary selection of Mirza Ghalib’s Urdu couplets, translated in English along with critical commentaries. Using colloquial and contemporary language, the translations provide an accessible and pleasurable route to understanding Ghalib’s poetry, while the commentary explores the multiple meanings of the Urdu original.

A veritable selection of the most remarkable verses by Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, The Essential Ghalib is a worthy addition to every ghazal aficionado’s bookshelf.*

Uncovering the subcontinent’s avian mysteries

To find a rare bird is the ultimate dream of ornithologists and birdwatchers. But doing it requires an understanding of habitats, animal behaviour and people skills as well as plain old good luck. Join ornithologists, naturalists and birdwatchers in the dense jungles of north-eastern India, the mysterious channels of the Sundarbans, the shola grasslands of the Western Ghats and the majestic landforms of the Deccan, as they track down the rarest birds of the Indian subcontinent.*

The making of modern Karnataka

Karnataka is one of India’s most diverse states, as rich in literary and cultural traditions as it is in democratic struggles and political churns. The twentieth century witnessed the birth of a modern Kannada renaissance, accompanied by the emergence of a powerful social conscience. One young man’s desire to explore this vibrant historical backyard, born out of a feeling of being linguistically unmoored, compounded by worries over an increasingly opaque political direction, leads to an ambitious — no, audacious — attempt to unpack the region’s social and cultural histories.

Rama Bhima Soma is an enterprise of translation and rediscovery, packed with stories and conversations. The life and times of legends like Kuvempu and Shivaram Karanth; the fall of socialism and the rise of the Hindu Right; the intellectual ruminations of UR Ananthamurthy, DR Nagaraj and MM Kalburgi; the wildly popular television serials of TN Seetharam and the community-centred one-woman theatre shows of Du Saraswathi; a brief history of Naxalism in Karnataka and glimpses of other complicated legacies of the 1970s’ Left — the book explores a dizzyingly wide sweep of Karnataka’s contemporary history, seeking, above all, to forge new connections and begin fresh conversations.

Marshalling a diverse range of literary and scholarly resources, framed through biographical sketches and immersive reportage, Srikar Raghavan’s genre-bending work of narrative non-fiction reanimates some pivotal moments in the making of modern Karnataka.*

*All copy from book flap.