The Glass-blower

Keki N. Daruwalla is one of India's leading English-language writers. He has published nine volumes of poetry, the sixth of which - "Landscapes" - won him the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for Asia in 1987. His Collected Poems 1970-2005 appeared from Penguin India in 2006. He is also the author of three volumes of short stories, a novella, two collections of poetry for children and a travelogue, as well as being well-known as a writer on international affairs and a prolific reviewer."The Glass-Blower" contains poems from all nine published collections as well as a body of new work. Daruwalla's poetry is characterized by the vigour and immediacy of its language, the delicacy of its land-scapes, the sharpness and sensitivity of its portrayals of both individuals and human society, and the breadth of its subject matter. This first full-length volume of Daruwalla's work to be published outside of India provides a long-overdue opportunity to become better acquainted with a poet previously encountered in the UK - in tantalizing glimpses - only in anthologies.