A glowing review of Arvind Krishna Mehrotra’s Songs of Kabir appeared in the May 29th issue of The New York Times Book Review.
“Arvind Krishna Mehrotra’s new translation of Kabir brings the poetry of the great 15th-century Indian poet and holy man to life in English for the first time. Not that others haven’t tried: Pound, Robert Bly and, most notably, Rabindranath Tagore in 1915, with a version consisting of thees, thous and thines, delivered in a sandalwood-scented prayer-book-ese that would not have been out of place atop a teak sidetable at one of Mme. Blavatsky’s legendary seances. But it is Mehrotra who has succeeded in capturing the ferocity and improvisational energy of Kabir’s poetry.” —August Kleinzahler, The New York Times Book Review
Plus, Songs of Kabir was applauded by Chandrahas Choudhury in the May 13 issue of The Wall Street Journal.
“Kabir’s famed iconoclasm, speed of thought, slashing paradoxical style, metaphorical zest and rhetorical brilliance have rarely been rendered into English better than in Mr. Mehrotra’s versions.” —Chandrahas Choudhury, The Wall Street Journal
Selected and translated from the Hindi by
Arvind Krishna Mehrotra
Preface by Wendy Doniger