Bøker av Arundhathi Subramaniam

The names of Mirabai, Akka Mahadevi and Andal, are known to many, but innumerable women poets remain relatively unknown. When we hear of them, it is invariably as plaster saints or meek followers. It is time to smell the danger in their words again, to listen to their feral sensuality, their searing questionsabout custodians of gender and faith. It is time to tune into their brazenness, their heartbreakinglonging. Not just for their sake but for ours too. In this anthology of sacred poetry that arrives after the much-loved book, Eating God, Arundhathi Subramaniam weaves together haunting voices of, by and for women across the Indian subcontinent. Here is a lineage of audacious woman-centred spirituality that traverses the poetry of ancient Buddhist nuns, Bhakti and Sufi mystics, tantrikas and Vedantins. There are women here, and men singing as women, and both raising their voices in praise of the sacred feminine. Brought to us through translation, these poems surprise with how intimately familiar their ravenous yearnings and ecstatic freedoms are. Wild Women invites us to reclaim an explosive inheritance of female power, rapture and wisdom.

In this inspiring book of divine discovery, poet and seeker Arundhathi Subramaniam gives us a glimpse into the lives of four self-contained, unapologetic female spiritual travelers."Among the finest pieces of spiritual truth-telling literature I have ever read ... A book to savor and celebrate."--Mirabai Starr, author of Wild Mercy and Ordinary Mysticism"As the pages turn, one feels a growing sense of shared humanity, even kinship, with these extraordinary practitioners of the sacred."--Tim Parks, author of Teach Us to Sit Still: A Skeptic's Search for Health and HealingIn life, spiritual paths are often as unique as we are. Bringing together the voices of four women mystics walking very different spiritual paths, poet Arundhathi Subramaniam reveals the expansive potential of forging an intimate, personal connection with the divine. We'll meet these four travelers: Sri Annapurani Amma, who left the safety of home to follow the summons of a long-dead saint and chooses to live naked, Balarishi Vishwashirasini, a nada yoga teacher who became a guru as a child and admits she's missed out on a real childhood, Lata Mani, who discovered tantra after a major accident left her with a brain injury and today talks of how the spiritual life is deeply anchored in the wisdom of the body--not unlike the redwood trees of her adopted home, andMaa Karpoori, who needed to resist pressure to marry, and found her calling in a local yoga class and now radiates fierce independence and the contagious joy of living.Sensitive, insightful, and lyrical, Women Who Wear Only Themselves bathes us in the kind of mystery that feels deeply familiar and invites us to connect with whatever sparks our spiritual fire.

Shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and a Poetry Book Society Choice, Subramaniam's new collection presents poems of wonder and precarious elation, and the seemingly diverse addresses of mystery and clarity, disruption and stillness - all the roadblocks and rewards on the long dangerous route to recovering what it is to be alive and human.