Books in the World Literature in Translation series

"Access Bengal's secret heart through this wondrous book. Travel deep into the forest and peek beyond the delta's edge: balancing scholarly rigor with storytelling elan, Tony Stewart's tidal tales with their fantastic cast of boundary-crossing characters shed unexpected and much-needed light on the relationship between Bengal, Islam, and the Indian Ocean world."--Ananya Jahanara Kabir, Infosys Prize winner and author, Partition's Post-Amnesias: 1947, 1971, and Modern South Asia "These subtly analyzed and beautifully translated tales represent a major accomplishment, revealing a sophisticated understanding of interreligious and intercaste relations in the register of the marvelous."--Faisal Devji, Professor of Indian History, University of Oxford

"The complexity and nuance of the South Asian imagination and the prowess of its traditional storytellers are vivid in these translations. These six qissas are extraordinarily rich with poetry, significance, and symbolism. A treat for any reader and a real gift for scholars."--Annie Zaidi, author of City of Incident: A Novel in Twelve Parts "Whenever you see the words 'translated by Musharraf Ali Farooqi' on the cover of a book, you should grab it and rejoice. Farooqi is a master storyteller, translator, and author who will transport you so beautifully to realms you never knew existed, you'll be reluctant to return."--Daisy Rockwell, International Booker Prize-winning translator

"Haiku, known in the West for its brevity, would be better served if valued for its spatial radiance. Andrew Fitzsimons' collection presents spare engaging translations with notes on literary allusion, double meanings, and autobiographical detail. These notes are not interpretations. Rather, they are gifts for your journey, should you care to accept. A uniquely wonderful anthology."--Kimiko Hahn, poet and author of Foreign Bodies "'You must put into words the light in which you see something before that light vanishes.' Such was the attitude out of which, phrase by phrase, Bashō's poems were created. Before the light emitted by each phrase of each poem in Japanese disappears, Fitzsimons carries it across into English. Bashō's Complete Haiku is an extraordinary achievement."--Takahashi Mutsuo, poet and author of Twelve Views from the Distance "A breath of fresh air in the middle of a chaotic world. Fitzsimons has done a beautiful job showing the uniqueness, drama, and playfulness of Bashō's originals."--Jeffrey Angles, poet and translator of Killing Kanoko: Selected Poetry of Hiromi Itō and Forest of Eyes: Selected Poems of Tada Chimako "This complete set of Bashō's haiku, brilliantly translated and annotated by Andrew Fitzsimons, makes the poet's work in the context of his life understandable as it never has been before in English. This book marks a moment of huge significance in world poetry."--Bernard O'Donoghue, University of Oxford