Bigger India
A diplomat is taking Indian poetry to the world through translations of a hundred great poems
Can poetry retain its power if it goes through multiple rounds of translations?
Abhay K is the author of five poetry collections and two memoirs but apart from being a prolific poet, he is also a diplomat, currently serving at the Indian embassy in Brasilia. Last year, he published an anthology of poems Capitals, an attempt to collect poems from or about every capital city in the world. With his latest anthology 100 Great Indian Poems, the poet-diplomat performs the daunting task of putting together the best and most representative of Indian poetry, from Eunice de Souza to Mir Taqi Mir. Excerpts from an interview in which Abhay K talks about selecting the hundred poems that make up the anthology, the critical task of translating them and his Brazilian connection.