In this, Vikram Seth’s first book of poems, we are introduced to work written in his twenties, when he was a student in England and, later, California. These poems—about love, life and landscape—are intimate, inventive and immediate. Interspersed with original poems are translations of a poem each by Du Fu (Chinese), Faiz Ahmed Faiz (Urdu), Heinrich Heine (German) and Suryakant Tripathi Nirala (Hindi).
The poems in Mappings enchant and impress with their controlled emotion and lyricism, classical learning, wit and perceptiveness—all facets of Vikram Seth’s now famed achievement.