Poetry / Asian Studies / Comparative Literature


Hibiscus on the Lake
Twentieth-Century Telugu Poetry from India
Edited and translated by Velcheru Narayana Rao


A lyrical anthology of contemporary poetry from India

English speakers may read for the first time a previously hidden literature of great beauty and importance, compiled and translated by one of the foremost scholars of the literature of twentieth-century India.

Richly appealing, sensitively and masterfully translated, surprisingly accessible, and adeptly organized, these poems from the Telugu language of southern India will find in this groundbreaking anthology the wider international readership they deserve and a place in the worldwide emergence of India's vernacular literature.

Velcheru Narayana Rao is an ideal guide for the English-language reader's timely introduction to this long and vigorous literary tradition and to the generously varied poets whose accomplished, exotic, enigmatic voices speak to us here at last in the boundless tradition of all great poetry.

"Entirely original, ironic, sensuous but never sexist. A small masterpiece and a precious piece of the record of good writing on this planet."
—Wendy Doniger, University of Chicago Divinity School

"A unique work. There is no similar or comparable anthology for any Indian literature, let alone Telugu. All of the translations are exquisite and learned, a rare combination indeed."—Phyllis Granoff, McMaster University

Velcheru Narayana Rao is the Krishnadevaraya Professor of Languages and Cultures of Asia at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is the coeditor, with David Shulman, of A Poem at the Right Moment: Remembered Verses from Premodern South India.



For more information regarding publicity and reviews contact our publicity manager, Chris Caldwell, phone: (608) 263-0734, email: publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu


cover of Rao is art of Telugu women

June 2003
344 pp. 6 x 9
ISBN 978-0-299-17700-3   
Cloth $45.00 s
ISBN 978-0-299-17704-1   
Paper $19.95 t


Not for sale in South Asia



Add titles to your shopping cart by clicking on the "Add this book to cart" link above. You can submit your order electronically, paying for it with your credit card.
Click here for a further explanation of the shopping cart feature

Never ordered from us before?
Read this first.

Home | Books | Journals | Events | Textbooks | Authors | Related | Search | Order | Contact

If you have trouble accessing any page in this web site, contact Kirt Murray, Web manager.
E-mail: kdmurray@wisc.edu or by phone at 608-263-0733.

Updated July 17, 2009

© 2009, The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System