The World Is Made Up Every Day

Forthcoming in March 2025.

Poetry that serves as a powerful testament to the struggles and resilience of India's marginalized, capturing the spirit of resistance and the fight for justice amidst the nation's turbulent political landscape.

Alok Dhanwa, a voice of the marginalized and a staunch critic of the establishment, captured in his Hindi poetry the ethos of a turbulent era in India and achieved a cult-like status among his peers. Born in 1948 in Munger, Bihar, he witnessed the rise and fall of political movements and wrote against the backdrop of the Maoist and Naxalite struggles. This collection, his first-ever book-length translation in English, brings to anglophone readers a glimpse of a volatile nation coming to grips with its own existence. His poetry highlights the ongoing fight for justice and identity in an ever-changing state that remains starkly relevant to the contemporary Indian polity. Dhanwa’s work is a beacon for the working class, a testament to resistance, and a reminder that the struggle for a better world is both eternal and essential. In his universe, love, rebellion, armed resistance and the everyday coexist, and they paint a vivid portrait of rural India’s landscapes and humanity’s capacity to defy power in all its forms. This book is not just a collection of poems; it is a call to keep the spirit of resistance alive and to live meaningfully in a world that constantly evolves but often remains unchanged.