The Jatakas: Birth Stories of the Bodhisatta

Keki Daruwalla established himself as a name to reckon with in Indian poetry with the publication of his very first book, Under Orion (1970). With nine published volumes so far, including The Keeper of the Dead, which won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1984, and Landscapes, which won the coveted Commonwealth Poetry Prize for Asia in 1987, he is today one of India's foremost poets. His poetry, characterized by a trademark vigour and immediacy of language, a razor-sharp tone and subtle imagery, consistently strikes an ingenious balance between image and statement. With his capacity to blend a larger-than-life canvas with an unfailing eye for detail, he addresses a remarkable variety of themes in his poems - from the epic concerns of culture and history, myth and religion to the quotidian affairs of life and death, love and passion. This definitive edition, testimony to his prodigious output and astonishing breadth of vision, brings together over three decades of Keki Daruwalla's work and also includes a whole new section of poems previously unpublished.