Rabindranath Tagore   In Paris this past May, in honor of next year’s Rabindranath Tagore sesquicentennial, UNESCO launched the beginning of a year-long commemoration—including w…

Sudeep Sen I n a WLT exclusive, Ziaul Karim—executive editor of Jamini, an international arts magazine, and former literary editor of the Daily Star—sat down with Sudeep Sen to…

Still from The Coward (1965), based on Mitra’s story, directed by Satyajit Ray and starring Soumitra Chatterjee and Madhabi Mukherjee Karuna brought me my morning cup of tea herself.            I cou…

Salt is earth’s sorrow and its taste.Earth’s three-fourths is brackish water,and men’s heart a salt mountain.Weak is salt’s heart,very quickly it melts,it sinks in shamewhen plates are flungdue to sa…

you became real to me fatherwhen I saw you fly over me from beneath the waves a bone-white door against the cloud-white ceilinglooking for me, flapping and furious I watched you in the dark as you sl…

Ah the Raj! Our mother-incarnate Victoria Imperatrix rules the sceptred sphere overseeing legions of maidens’ “fishing fleets” that break the waves to net the love of a heaven Etonian!Fetes on lawns…

My small worldlies suspended betweenthe four walls of your house.There is no entry sign,yet my life, leashed to it,keeps moving endless round and round. From wherever I startI reach your house, sure…

  I spread out earth’s green bedI pull in sky’s blue veilI place sun and moon on two pillowsI remove grass’s attireI indulge in play with you. Translation from the Hindi By Sudeep Sen…

Here, every child is scared to playHere, every squirrel has a bullet-proof home Here, every old man wants to commit suicideThere is no difference between a soldier and a manNo difference between the…

           How sweet the past is, no matter how wrong, or how sad.                                                            – Charles Wright I watch the icicles              unravel from t…

Was it a Sunday eveningWhen you left a window carelessly openYou rang first that gong of betrayal? Was it one high noonWhen you thoughtlessly fed her bones of the lambYou sang first that litany of du…

Two friends in New York City find themselves unexpectedly at a roundabout where life, love, desire, and death all want right of way. In the struggle that ensues, there is a winner, but it isn’t o…

The following post-independence books have served as important literary markers: Fiction, Poetry & DramaAgha Shahid Ali, The Veiled Suite: Collected Poems (Pe…

Guest edited by Sudeep Sen Sudeep Sen To celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of India’s Republic, the current issue of World Literature Today showcases some of the best cutting-edge modern…