What affirms our humanity, enduring beyond our barbarism? Where is home, in a world beleaguered by climate crisis, pandemic and genocide? Hunchprose is Ranjit Hoskote’s fierce, poignant testament to these urgencies.
The title of this dazzling new collection asserts poetry’s claim to be heard above the buzz of data, to transform language, broken by history, into music. Vibrant with linguistic experiment, Hunchprose weaves unpredictable patterns, celebrates our plural selves. In the erasure of ancient scripts, the melting Arctic ice, a lion tamer’s primal fear, we recognize vulnerability and rupture. A dancer’s courage, a leather worker’s revolutionary promise, a locksmith’s passion for ruins inspire us to redeem ourselves through love, doubt, hope and dream.
Infused with wry humour, informed by the wisdom traditions, Hunchprose urges us to look at our world, and within ourselves, with renewed ardour. Ranjit Hoskote is a poet, cultural theorist and curator. His seven collections of poetry include Vanishing Acts, Central Time and Jonahwhale. He is also the author of I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Ded, the editor of Dom Moraes: Selected Poems and a translator of the legendary Urdu poets Mir and Ghalib. Hoskote curated India’s first-ever national pavilion at the Venice Biennale. He has received the Sahitya Akademi Golden Jubilee Award, the Sahitya Akademi Translation Award and the S.H. Raza Literature Award. His poems have been translated into German, Hindi, Bengali, Irish, Marathi, Swedish and Spanish.
