In this, Vikram Seth’s first book of poems, we are introduced to work written
in his twenties, when he was a student in England and, later, California.
These poems—about love, life and landscape—are intimate, inventive and
immediate. Interspersed with original poems are translations of a poem each
by Du Fu (Chinese), Faiz Ahmed Faiz (Urdu), Heinrich Heine (German) and
Suryakant Tripathi Nirala (Hindi).
The poems in Mappings enchant and impress with their controlled emotion
and lyricism, classical learning, wit and perceptiveness—all facets of Vikram
Seth’s now famed achievement