Majestic Nights
Love Poems of Bengali Women
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How do Bengali women love in times of social transition and political upheaval? These poems look at how Bengali women tell their truths of the heart and mind through their struggles for equality, opportunity, and recognition in a changing society. The poems follow a subtle trajectory through the stages of love: first love; marriage; separation; aging and death; and ultimate supreme, universal love, of which romantic love is an imperfect reflection.
Carolyne Wright spent four years collecting and translating Bengali women's poetry. Wright is a poet herself, and her most recent collection is A Change of Maps.
Carolyne Wright
Translated by
Carolyne Wright is author of This Dream the World: New and Selected Poems, whose title poem won a Pushcart Prize and also appeared in The Best American Poetry 2009. Her anthology, Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace, received ten Pushcart Prize nominations. She authored five earlier books of poetry, a volume of essays, and five award-winning volumes in translation from Spanish and Bengali. A contributing editor for the Pushcart Prizes, she teaches at Seattle's Richard Hugo House and at conferences and festivals worldwide.
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