Magadh
Published on 7. October 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
978-1-916751-33-0 (ISBN)
Description
Winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award
Magadh, Shrikant Verma's masterpiece, was first published in Hindi in 1984 and 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 splendour, their decline and eventual fall. In poems that are stark and urgent yet arch and richly allusive, Verma lays bare their tales of corruption, guilt, ignorance and arrogance. Rahul Soni's landmark translation stays faithful to the spare, haunting, incantatory cadences of the original, revealing how startlingly prescient and relevant Magadh remains today.
'Forty years after, these poems are more relevant than ever, telling of power's hollow victories, the peculiar burden of joy, how sorrow finds us wherever we may hide.' Jeet Thayil
Magadh, Shrikant Verma's masterpiece, was first published in Hindi in 1984 and 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 splendour, their decline and eventual fall. In poems that are stark and urgent yet arch and richly allusive, Verma lays bare their tales of corruption, guilt, ignorance and arrogance. Rahul Soni's landmark translation stays faithful to the spare, haunting, incantatory cadences of the original, revealing how startlingly prescient and relevant Magadh remains today.
'Forty years after, these poems are more relevant than ever, telling of power's hollow victories, the peculiar burden of joy, how sorrow finds us wherever we may hide.' Jeet Thayil
Reviews / Votes
'In Rahul Soni's translation, Verma's minimalist poems are made beautiful by their precise syntax and structural interstices.' Alexander Leissle, *Art Review * 'First published in Hindi in 1984, two years before Verma's death, and here published for the first time in the UK in Soni's luminous translation, this haunting and haunted masterpiece resonates louder than ever in our own times, with its stark images of cities pulverised by invading armies.' Philip Terry, The Guardian 'Magadh traces vanished kingdoms and India's historical and mythic past in spare poems that circle, insistently, around repetitions and riddling questions; history is rendered less as narrative than as an atmosphere heavy with absence. Rahul Soni's translation carries this stark power with clarity and restraint. The work feels both ancient and urgently present, just as Verma's own retrospective ubi sunt draws us to consider our own situation within cycles of rise and decline. A remarkable, disorienting book that resists closure or consolation.' Leon Ray-Fernandes, Poetry Book Society 'Verma renders Magadh as a place at once real and imaginary, lasting and lost-both a point of origin and an unreachable destination. The book circles political concerns that remain relevant today, including empire, caste prejudice, and the dangers of despotism and corruption. But in Soni's careful translation, the repetitions and subtle variation of Verma's poems also achieve a haunting, transcendental resonance.' New YorkerMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
High Wycombe
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 197 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
150 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-916751-33-0 (9781916751330)
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Persons
Shrikant Verma (1931-1986) was a central figure in the Nai Kavita literary movement. He was also a member of the Congress party and served as spokesman of the party through the late 1970s to the early 80s. He published books of fiction, a travelogue, essays and five collections of poetry.