Magadh: Poems

Why are you silent, friends?

What's happened in Magadh?

Magadh, Shrikant Verma's masterpiece, takes its name from the ancient Indian kingdom of Magadh, which rose to prominence in the sixth to second centuries BCE. First published in Hindi in 1984, it is widely regarded as one of the most important works of modern Indian poetry.

A chorus of narrators--commoners, statesmen, nameless wanderers--pieces together the histories of ancient cities and kingdoms on the Indian subcontinent, their rise to splendor, their decline and eventual fall. In poems that are stark and urgent yet richly allusive, Verma lays bare these kingdoms' tales of corruption, guilt, ignorance, and arrogance.

Rahul Soni's landmark translation, finally available in the United States, stays faithful to the spareness and the haunting, incantatory cadences of the original text, revealing how startlingly prescient Magadh remains today.