I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Ded (Penguin Classics)

The poems of the fourteenth-century Kashmiri mystic Lal Ded, popularly known as Lalla, strike us like brief and blinding bursts of light. Emotionally rich yet philosophically precise, sumptuously enigmatic yet crisply structured, these poems are as sensuously evocative as they are charged with an ecstatic devotion. Stripping away a century of Victorian-inflected translations and paraphrases and restoring the jagged, colloquial power of Lalla’s voice, in Ranjit Hoskote’s new translation these poems are glorious manifestos of illumination.

Review
The writer has worked wonderfully on the poems of fourteenth Century Kashmiri mystic poet ‘Lalleshuri’ or ‘Lalded’ as she is popularly called. The translation is nearest to the original and the notes quite amply satisfying. The writer deserves my heartfelt kudos for his excellent work. –By JL BHAT on 16 April 2014

A modern interpretation of the Lalla’s poems which is very good –By Karthik Anbunathan on 19 August 2014

Enjoy the divine wine through lalla’s words….. –By MKR on 24 October 2014

About the Author
Ranjit Hoskote is a poet, cultural theorist and curator. His collections of poetry include Vanishing Acts: New & Selected Poems 1985 – 2005 (Penguin, 2006) and Die Ankunft der Vogel (Carl Hanser Verlag, 2006). His poems have appeared in Akzente, Boulevard Magenta, Fulcrum, Green Integer Review, Iowa Review, Nthposition and Wespennest. Hoskote was a Fellow of the International Writing Program, University of Iowa (1995), writer-in-residence at Villa Waldberta, Munich (2003) and research scholar in residence at BAK/ basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht (2010 and 2013).