Grateful thanks to all four poets for the privilege and pleasure of reading and translating these poems and also for answering all my questions patiently. Special thanks to Sukirtharani for her unpublished article ‘Naanum en Ezhutthum’, to Kutti Revathi for the transcript of an interview with the editors of the journal Panimulai, and to Kannan Sundaram for the articles by Rajasekaran and Krishangini which were published in Kalachuvadu, following the meeting organized by the editors of the journal in November 2004. Thanks to Kannan also for sending me his introduction to the German edition of The Hour Past Midnight.
My thanks to the publishing team of Sangam House and Kalachuvadu for making this book happen, and most of all to Arshia Sattar.
Thanks to Mark for being there, as always.
Some of the translations used in this anthology have appeared in the following publications:
Salma: ‘Paths’, ‘The rust of silence’; Malathi Maithri: ‘She who threads the skies’, ‘Waves’ in Moving Worlds: A Journal of Transcultural Writings (2004).
Malathi Maithri: ‘She who threads the skies’ in T. Chang, N. Handal & Ravi Shankar, Language for a New Century (NY & London: Norton, 2008).
Salma: ‘The rust of silence’, ‘A midnight tale’; Malathi Maithri: ‘She who threads the skies’, ‘Waves’, ‘Swing’; Kutti Revathi: ‘Light prowls like a cat’ in L. Holmström, S. Krishnaswamy & K. Srilata (eds). The Rapids of a Great River: The Penguin Book of Tamil Poetry (New Delhi: Penguin India, 2009).
Salma: ‘The solitude of a painted house’, ‘The contract’; Malathi Maithri: ‘Observe the crane’; Kutti Revathi: ‘Rain-river’ in Talisman: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry & Poetics (Summer 2010).