English : Poems

The narrator in Jeet Thayil's second full-length collection abandons the sectarian histories of 1990s' Bombay for New York City-and the events of September 11 2001. In the faux prologue poem 'About the Author' he stands on 'Sixth watching ruin with/a handful of rain and a prophecy' a citizen of no country except the republic that gives the book its title. English here is more than a language. It is a source of divinity and it holds a hard-won tenderness for all things living. Review Free-form paeans of love and loss passion and praise riverine extravagant moving yet playful -- Arundhathi SubramaniamJeet Thayil's work is quite simply the genuine article. I shake vigorously his hand -- Thomas Lux About the Author Jeet Thayil was born in Kerala India and educated in Hong Kong New York and Bombay. He is a performance poet librettist novelist and songwriter. Thayil's collections of poetry includeGemini II Selected PoemsApocalypsoEnglish andThese Errors are Correct. He has editedGive the Sea Change and It Shall Change 56 Indian PoetsDivided Time India and the End of Diaspora andThe Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets. His first novelNarcopolis was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won a DSC Prize for South Asian literature.