AMIT MAJMUDAR is a diagnostic nuclear radiologist who lives in Westerville, Ohio, with his wife and three children. He is the author of three volumes of poetry, most recently
Dothead. His first collection,
0°, 0°, was a finalist for the Poetry Society of America's Norma Farber First Book Award; his second,
Heaven and Earth, was selected for the 2011 Donald Justice Prize. His work has appeared in the
New York Times,
New Yorker,
Best of the Best American Poetry and many other publications, including the eleventh edition of
The Norton Introduction to Literature. He blogs for the
Kenyon Review and is also a critically acclaimed novelist. His next novel,
Soar, is forthcoming from Penguin Random House India in 2019.
Born in the United States into a secularized Hindu family, Amit Majmudar puzzled over the many religious traditions on offer and found that the Bhagavad-Gita had much to teach him with its "song of multiplicities." Chief among them is that "its own assertions aren't as important as the relationships between its characters . . . The Gita imagined a relationship in which the soul and God are equals." It is, he believes, "the greatest poem of friendship . . . in any language." His verse translation captures the many tones and strategies Krishna uses with Arjuna-strict and berating, detached and philosophical, tender and personable.
The listener's guides to each section expand on the main text and what is happening between the lines in accessible terms. Godsong is an instant classic in the field, from a poet of skill, fine intellect, and-perhaps most important-devotion.
Ravishing and faithful, marked by what Nabokov once called 'the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.' Majmudar has a gift for imagery . . .
Godsong reveals how beautifully this 2,000-year-old book lends itself to the careful, loving work of translation.A well-crafted and exceptional translation of a spiritual and cultural masterpiece.
