Bloomsbury Anthology of Great Indian Poems launched at Jaipur Lit Fest

The Bloomsbury Anthology of Great Indian Poems edited by poet-diplomat Abhay K was launched at the Jaipur Literature Festival on Thursday by poets and writers Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Surjit Patar, Ranjit Hoskote and Chadrahas Choudhary.

The book celebrates the linguistic diversity of India covering poetry translated from 28 Indian languages from a period of over 3000 years of Indian poetry.

The anthology includes 200 poems.

Speaking at the book launch, Mehrotra said, "Making anthology is an ancient practice. Anthologies help in making poetry survive. Sanskrit poetry would not have survived without various anthologies of Sanskrit poetry."

Abhay K has made a vital contribution in documenting and preserving Indian poetry by editing The Bloomsbury Anthology of Great Indian Poems.

Responding to a question from Choudhary, Abhay K said that one of his goals of editing this anthology was to shift the focus to poems from poets and hence anthology is called 'Great Indian Poems' and not 'Great Indian Poets'.

On the occasion, Patar and Hoskote read their own poems and translations from the anthology.