Gems of Hindi Poetry

Hindi poetry is rich and profound by any standard. Its history can be traced back to almost a thousand years. This anthology, a unique attempt at presenting great Hindi poetry to the largest number of poetry lovers all over the world. Translated into English these poems will also give an opportunity to those readers who may not have had the opportunity of reading Hindi poetry in original. These poems have been translated by the eminent poet and translator Kuldip Sell who has already translated the whole range of Urdu poetry into English and the best known English poems into Hindi in 16 volumes. His latest translations include Nobel laureate Bob Dylan's songs and poems into Hindi. This anthology has been ably edited by Om Sapra, who is a poet and essay writer and also has more than forty years' experience in Editing.

Kuldip Salil has published nine collections of his poetry in Hindi, Urdu and English. Writing about his translation of Dewan-e-Ghalib', eminent writer Sardar Khushwant Singh says, "These renderings of `Dewan-e-Ghalib' by Kuldip Salil read better than any I have read by scholars of Urdu, be they Indian, Pakistan or Firangi".

Om Sapra has edited a large number of books both in Hindi & English and has been assisting in editing a bilingual monthly journal for about 40 years. In March, 2017, he received prestigious "2nd Asiad Literature Festival : Award-2017".

Compiling an anthology of Hindi Poetry in English translation has been my long-cherished desire. This desire became stronger still after I translated a whole gamut of Urdu poetry—Mir, Ghalib, Iqbal, Faiz, Firaq, Ahmed Faraz, Sahir and others in separate volumes, and a 'Treasury of Urdu Poetry' containing thirty four poets. These books have received very encouraging response from readers and eminent critics like Khuswant Singh, who read every book and wrote : These renderings by Kuldip Salil read better than any I have read by Urdu scholars, be they Indian, Pakistani and Firangi. I have been into reading, writing and teaching poetry for fifty five years now. My first book of Hindi poems was published in 1979, and was adjudged as one of the best that year by the noted poet and critic Sarveshwar Dayal Saxena who was then editing `Sarika'. Around that time I spent ten years exclusively reading Hindi poetry and fiction. The suggestion for publishing this anthology now came from my friend and guide Prof. I. N. Choudhury, a leading critic and thinker in the country. In fact on his suggestion I had many years ago translated Shamsher Bahadur Singh's SahityaAcademy award winning poetic collection `Chuka bhi nahin hoon mein' . Before that I had translated the best-known English poems into Hindi verse. Later I published my own English poems.

**Contents and Sample Pages**