Abhay K. with well-known author William Dalrymple during the launch of his new book ‘Celestial’ today.
Jaipur: Bihar-born poet Abhay K.’s new book ‘Celestial’ was launched by well-known author William Dalrymple and the Head of the Department of Music at King’s College, London, Katherine Schofield, at the Jaipur Literature Festival, here today.
Celestial is a love poem of a hundred rhyming stanzas written by Abhay K. during his stay in Madagascar, that takes the readers to the 88 star constellations visible from Earth, and helps them to explore the Universe through verse.
Speaking at the book launch Abhay K. said —“Madagascar’s skies were very clear and I could see star constellations with my naked eyes during my stay in this beautiful Indian Ocean island. One night I saw the constellation of Scorpius very clearly and a poem started taking shape that night which later kept growing up to 100 rhyming stanzas. I was lucky to find illustrations by 10th century Persian astronomer Abd Al Rahman Al Sufi, with whose work, my couplets have been illustrated.”
Speaking at the launch of Celestial, Katherine Schofield asked Abhay K. about the writing of the book—“You have written two recent long poems in book form about huge natural phenomena — the monsoon, and now the constellations — that have affected human societies since homo sapiens first stood on two legs. What is it that you find so inspiring about such things that you want to express in poetry?”
She added —“I recall my own childhood experience of sitting out in the Australian bush with my father who taught me the names of all the southern stars, and how disorienting it was for me moving to the northern hemisphere. I am fascinated by your very specific moment of inspiration to write on the stars when you were in Madagascar.”
Schofield further said —“What is really beautiful about this book is that Abhay K. has combined it with illustrations from a very early Bodleian library copy of the 10th century Suwar al-kawakib, or the Book of the Fixed Stars by Persian astronomer Abd Al Rahman Al Sufi.
The book launch was attended by people from different walks of life from several countries.
– global bihari bureau
