A Mandala of Words

Cultural Realities in the Poems of Ashok Vajpeyi

This book is a hermeneutic analysis of the main poetic spaces in the work of Ashok Vajpeyi, a poet and a critic recognized among the eminent contemporary Hindi writers. The four parts of the book are devoted to major anthropological questions, instrumental for the poet who – while searching for the principle of unity with the world – causes language to become an extension of existence. The author shows how, by combining both the Indian and Western cultural traditions, Vajpeyi locates his poetry «between civilizations», where it remains a self-contained projection of discourse taking the form of original and engaging patterns of poetic communication. The book portrays a significant case of the cultural encounter of East and West in the modern globalized world.