Magadh
Shrikant Verma’s masterpiece “Magadh” gets revised English translation, marking the poet’s 37th death anniversary. Translated by Rahul Soni and published by Westland, the 1984 book is hailed as a significant work of modern Indian poetry. Soni describes the poems as stark, urgent, and allusive, delving into themes of corruption, guilt, ignorance, and arrogance.
The new edition, released in 2023, aims to reach a wider audience and offers fresh meanings and relevance to Verma’s cyclical view of history and existential despair. Soni hopes the translation exposes unexamined darkness within readers. Verma, a key figure in the Nayi Kavita movement, had an impressive literary career spanning fiction, travelogues, interviews, essays, and poetry collections such as “Jalsaghar” and “Magadh.”
“Magadh” earned Verma the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1987. After battling cancer, he passed away in 1986 in New York. The revised edition features a foreword by professor Apoorvanand and essays by Hindi poet Ashok Vajpayee and academic Mantra Mukim. Apoorvanand praises Soni’s translation for faithfully capturing the power of Verma’s prose and predicts that the English literary world will benefit from the publication of the volume.
The book, priced at Rs 599, is available for purchase both online and offline.
