WHEN THE NIGHT AGREES TO SPEAK TO ME

If I had only one word to define this book, it would be aliveness-a synonym, plausibly, in Ananda Devi's idiolect, for freedom. Everything-from the Night in the title, to skin, to mud, to a green sari, to sound, to Time itself-is alive . . . Translated with calm dexterity and breathtaking attention by Kazim Ali, this is a collection that held my body-eyes and heart and brain-in its jaws from beginning till end. ' -- Karthika NairAnanda Devi's poetry singes and sings of the body electric, bound by the complex, colonial island politics of Mauritius and yet boundless like the waters that surround it. This book of harsh lyric and enigmatic and erotic prose, takes on a second life in Kazim Ali's sensitive translation.