A stunning collection of poems by Mirabai, the fifteenth-century female Indian ecstatic poet. Like Coleman Barks's translations of Rumi, this collection of poems by Mirabai will appeal to anyone interested in spiritual poetry.

Mirabai, an iconic sixteenth-century Indian poet-saint, is renowned for her unwavering love of God, her disregard for social hierarchies and gendered notions of honor and shame, and her challenge to familial, feudal, and religious authorities. Defying attempts to constrain and even kill her, she could not be silenced. Though verifiable facts regarding her life are few, her fame spread across social, linguistic, and religious boundaries, and stories about her multiplied across the subcontinent and the centuries. In Mirabai, Nancy M. Martin traces the story of this immensely popular Indian saint from the earliest manuscript references to her through colonial and nationalist developments to scholarly and popular portrayals in the decades leading up to Indian independence. This book examines Mirabai's place as both insider and outsider to the developing strands of devotional Hinduism and her role in contested terrain of debates around the education and independence of women and the crafting of Indian and Hindu identities. Mirabai offers a comprehensive and multi-layered portrait of this remarkable and still controversial woman, who continues to be a source of inspiration and catalyst for self-actualization for spiritual seekers, artists, activists, and so many others in India and around the world today.

ABOUT THE BOOK:THE DEVOTIONAL POEMS OF MIRABAI offers the reader a sober English translation of two hundred of her Padas, based on the interpretative work of Indian scholars that has appeared during the last few decades. Three introductory essays dea

A prolific journalist, Jyoti Jafa is an aristocrat by birth, a diplomat by training and a writer by inclination. She infuses her writing with her own joie de vivre and an artist’s sensitivity to ambience. She is also the author of three of our bestsellers, Nurjahan, Really, Your Highness! and Royal Rajasthan.

‘Meera Vs Meera’ is a translation of a wellreceived book ‘Pachrang Chola Pahar Sakhi Ri’ in Hindi. For centuries, the masses regarded Meera’s poetry as a medium of expression of their feelings and emotions. Meera’s poetry, though interpreted in multiple ways has dwarfed, weakened and gulfed her persona. The religious discourses and narratives festered with her religious aspect, whereas the European historians during the colonial period in India focussed on elements of love, romance and mystery in Meera’s life. The Marxist critics and neo-feminist activists highlighted Meera’s narratives related to her courage and self-determination, which she exhibited during her times. In this process the human aspects of Meera were completely side-lined which is far more evident from her poetry. Meera is a feudal, rebel, devotee, poet and much more. She led an eventful human life. She never felt alienated or free from womanly passions and was the creation of the society she lived in. Meera believed ‘Soney kaat na lagey’ (Gold never rusts…). In ‘Meera Vs Meera’ an attempt is made to conserve the ‘real self ’ of Meera, left over by the multiple interpretations through the centuries.

Over the last five years, from the #Me Too Movement to same-sex marriage, from devastating bush fires to the global pandemic, the online poetry journal Not Very Quiet has dedicated itself to publishing women's voices from across the globe. Not Very Quiet: The anthology selects poetry that has given voice to the social conscience of the community, constructions of lesbian and queer, the challenges posed to the social construction of gender, as well as the complexities and possibilities of the human condition.

On the completion of fiftieth year of Sahitya Akademi.