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About the Book
Yamini Dand Shah, with this new book Abstract Oralism, captures both precisely and remarkably the mysterious and elusive world of the Kachchh of Western Gujarat. Her metaphors and similes transport the reader towards this ancient terrain where Indus Valley peoples once flourished. Conceptually advanced and sophisticated, the poetry of this book causes us to reconsider our place in the world: in the light of the author’s extraordinary perception that translates earthly experience into a uniquely beautiful expression of the human condition.
-KEVIN MCGRATH, Poet Laureate, Harvard University
In the ‘Abstract Oralism’, Yamini reveals the beguiling mythic and mimetic history of the dangerously luminous, sensuous, and ephemeral beauty of the desert of Rann of Kachchh leaving us astonished and redeemed at once. ‘Sifting through soiled pages of an anti-modern, abridged dictionary’ of memories, she weaves embroidered tales of palaeolithic biographies of forgotten people in an experimental genre of speech-therapy with fierce emotional power. By turns poignant, playful and ironic, Yamini’s deceptively layered linguistic dreamscapes break new ground in experiencing hallucinatory minimalism in poetry. A mesmerizing debut!
-ASHWANI KUMAR, Poet, Writer and Public Policy Researcher
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