An Anthology of Poems that Reclaim the Explosive Inheritance of Female Power, Rapture and Wisdom
- This is an anthology of sacred poems by, of and for women across the Indian subcontinent – rebels, pioneers, goddesses, foremothers.
- Widely translated and anthologized, Arundhathi Subramaniam is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award 2020
- Shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize for poetry in 2015, her awards include the inaugural Khushwant Singh Prize for Poetry, the Raza Award for Poetry, the Il Ceppo Prize in Italy, the Mystic Kalinga Award, the Zee Indian Women’s Award for Literature, the Homi Bhabha and Charles Wallace fellowships, among others.
Published by Penguin Random House India, Wild Women by Arundhathi Subramaniam, the Sahitya Akademi Award winning poet, weaves together haunting voices of, by and for women across the Indian subcontinent. These poems surprise with how intimately familiar their ravenous yearnings and ecstatic freedoms are. It invites us to reclaim an explosive inheritance of female power, rapture and wisdom.
This anthology of sacred poetry that arrives after the much-loved book, Eating God, Arundhathi Subramaniam, implicates three kinds of women: women mystics; male poets who choose to channel the female voice; and Goddesses. It is a unique and composite celebration of sacred female ancestry in India.
The names of Mirabai, Akka Mahadevi and Andal, are known to many, but innumerable women poets remain relatively unknown. When we hear of them, it is invariably as plaster saints or meek followers. It is time to smell the danger in their words again, to listen to their feral sensuality, their searing questions about custodians of gender and faith.
It is time to tune into their brazenness, their heartbreaking longing in Wild Women by Arundhathi Subramaniam. Not just for their sake but for ours too.
About the author
Arundhathi Subramaniam is a poet and spiritual traveller. Her books include a volume on contemporary women on sacred journeys, Women Who Wear Only Themselves; the bestselling biography of a contemporary mystic, Sadhguru: More Than a Life; anthologies of Bhakti poetry, Eating God, and of essays on sacred journeys, Pilgrim’s India. She has also written the much-reprinted Book of Buddha. Widely translated and anthologized, she is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award 2020. She was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize for poetry in 2015. Arundhathi has received several awards, including the inaugural Khushwant Singh Memorial Prize for Poetry, the Raza Award for Poetry, the Il Ceppo Prize in Italy, the Mystic Kalinga Literary Award, the Zee Indian Women’s Award for Literature, and the Homi Bhabha and Charles Wallace fellowships.
