'A masterclass of contemporary Tamil poetry' - Namita Gokhale In 2003, a group of men and women, setting themselves up as guardians of Tamil culture, objected publicly to the language of a new generation of women poets - particularly in the work of Malathi Maithri, Salma, Kutti Revathi and Sukirtharani - charging the women with obscenity and immodesty. More than a decade later, a deep divide still persists in the way readers and critics perceive women poets. Tamil women poets have been categorized as 'bad girls' and 'good girls'. The traditional values prescribed for the 'good' Tamil woman are fearfulness, propriety and modesty. Our poets have chosen, instead, the opposite virtues - fearlessness, outspokenness and a ceaseless questioning of prescribed rules. This anthology celebrates the poetry of the four poets through Lakshmi Holmstrom's English translation.

In 2003, a group of men and women, setting themselves up as guardians of Tamil culture, objected publicly to the language of a new generation of women poets -- particularly in the work of Malathi Maithri, Salma, Kutti Revathi and Sukirtharani -- charging the women with obscenity and immodesty. More than a decade later, a deep divide still persists in the way readers and critics perceive women poets. Tamil women poets have been categorized as 'bad girls' and 'good girls'. The traditional values prescribed for the 'good' Tamil woman are fearfulness, propriety and modesty. Our poets have chosen, instead, the opposite virtues -- fearlessness, outspokenness and a ceaseless questioning of prescribed rules. This anthology celebrates the poetry of the four poets through Lakshmi Holmstrom's English translation.

The breathtaking poems in Love Stands Alone speak to us across time, space, language and culture. The interior, akam, and the exterior, puram, form their two overarching themes. The akam poems are concerned with love in all its varied situations: clandestine and illicit; conjugal happiness and infidelity; separation and union. The puram poems encompass all other aspects of worldly life: wars and battlefields, the munificence of kings and chieftains, and the wisdom of bards. With a comprehensive introduction by A.R. Venkatachalapathy, M.L. Thangappa’s translations delight the senses and bring alive a world long past.

Ainkurunuru is a collection of five hundred poems written by five different poets who lived two thousand years before. It tells you the story of the lovers, their sadness, joy, jealousies, and quarrels in verses of breathtaking sophistication and indirection. It is about the art and life of a people almost irretrievably lost, found in palm script, and restored by scholars in love with the Tamil language.

Words translated. Thoughts in transit. Layered with dark humour and precise imagery, a collection of poems to plunge you into the core of meaning, Katha proudly presents its first anthology, tinted in every wash of life and dotted with the Sirissa trees and wailing Palms of the Tamil landscape. An art-tradition is living, breathing history, a contemporary past. Tamil Poetry traces its origin to thousands of years ago. Beautifully translated by Dr K S Subramanian, the anthology is the latest chapter in this history. Featuring a range of poets, from stalwarts like Na Pichamurthy to young artists like Kanimozhi, seeking a sun aflame as a sandal bowl, and a name that does not respond/ To anyone's voice; it brings together diverse voices united in their expertise.

Exploring themes of personal loss, sexuality, identity and selfhood, and a quest for meaning in a fluid world, this collection of short stories by Ambai articulates the real experience of women and communicates their silences in words and images.

Social Geographies: The Basics introduces what social geography is, and what it might be. It outlines the key contours of social geographies, and also disrupts some of the conventions of the discipline in both its content and structure. This book approaches social geographies by beginning with the resistances, contestations and ‘solutions’ that communities use to challenge exclusions in place and space in order to create equitable societies. It then addresses the inequalities, precarities, and ‘problems’ that prompt these interventions. This allows the book to emphasise the importance of activism in the here and now, and to show how activism often makes issues visible and contested in ways that are then theorised by academics. Social Geographies starts with solidarities, communities, and networks before moving to examine difference, precarity, and mobilities. Each chapter offers key case studies that centre resistance, contestations of inequitable power, and local knowledges that can often be seen as ‘solutions’ to national and transnational issues, creating a decolonial understanding of ‘social geography from below’ within and across national contexts. This book is essential reading for undergraduate students and readers new to the area, as well as anyone studying introductory geography, social, cultural and critical geography, ‘the spatial turn’ and issues of spatialities, and key issues like precarity, power, difference, equality, and mobilities.