The Country Without a Post Office

Agha Shahid Ali

Penguin Books India

104 pages, ₹ 299

Originally published in 1997, this is a haunting volume of poems about Kashmir by a poet who had established his reputation with previous collections such as A Nostalgist’s Map of America. Amidst rain, fire and ruin, in a land of “doomed addresses”, Ali evokes the tragedy of his birthplace. These are poems of extraordinary formal precision and virtuosity, intensely musical, steeped in history, myth and politics, all merging into Agha Shahid Ali’s finest mode, that of longing.