Wonderland

Wonderland presents the celebrated poetry of Sarwat Zahra in English translation for the first time. This collection includes poems drawn from her previous two volumes, Song of the Blazing Wind (2002) and From Time's Captivity (2013), plus a generous selection of her newest work. Zahra writes in free verse and in the traditional ghazal form, treating popular culture, the internet, science, work, the "male gaze," and the daily news in poems of lament, protest, and lyric beauty. She writes of romantic love, often contributing to the tradition of love poems that shade into metaphysical thought and religious yearning. Dr. Satya Pal Anand comments: "This slim volume by Sarwat Zahra assembles poems and ghazals by the talented poet. Translating poetry into the verse of an alien idiom is the work of a virtuoso who is not only linguistically adept in both languages but also is aware of the poetic idioms of the donor and the receiver languages. Together, Rizwan Ali and Robert Schultz have become that virtuoso. Even a cursory glance through Wonderland will reveal the quality of their translation. Readers in the Indo-Pak subcontinent and elsewhere are receiving a gift of excellence in this book, particularly if they have not read Urdu poetry in the original." Sarwat Zahra is a vivid and fearless poet whose voice, in this moment, must be heard: "Behold this Journey! . . . before the first steps / An intention moved— / You in my heart, primordial longing / Issuing first from the stench of caves, / My helix scratch on their walls . . .."

Sarwat Zahra (b. 1972) has been recognized with 20 poetry prizes and citations by organizations in her native Pakistan, in the United Arab Emirates, and in India. Most recently, in October 2019, Bazm-e Sadaf, the Urdu poetry organization with chapters in ten countries, honored her with its prestigious international literature award. She writes in free verse and in the traditional ghazal form, addressing contemporary realities—popular culture, the internet, science, work, and the daily news—in a variety of forms and dictions. She writes frankly about women's issues, ranging from
matters of romance to social justice. She addresses current political events, the "male gaze," and the situation of working mothers in poems of lament or protest, yet she also writes of romantic love, often contributing to the tradition of love poems that shade into metaphysical thought and religious yearning. Her first book, Song of the Blazing Wind (2003), was issued in a second printing in 2009. Her second book, From Time's Prison (2013) was translated from the Urdu into Hindi in 2017. She has read her work widely as a featured poet at events in South Asia and the U.S., including recent major Urdu poetry gatherings in New York City and Washington, DC. Four of her poems, translated for the first time into English, appeared in The Hudson Review (Winter 2020) in versions prepared by Rizwan Ali and Robert Schultz and authorized by the poet. Dr. Zahra is a medical doctor specializing in emergency care. She lives and works in Dubai. Rizwan Ali, a published poet in his native Urdu, has been an invited participant and featured poet at conferences in New York City and Washington, DC. Ali has been a pioneer in the use of the internet to publish, share, and discuss Urdu literature. He founded the "Literary Forum of North America" on the literature of South East Asia which includes 2,500 members from 46 countries. He founded and directs the Literary Forum Press which in February 2020 began to publish The Ledger, a quarterly hard copy digest of the forum's activity. Currently Ali is working to organize and coordinate the six major online forums that treat Urdu literature, and in February 2020 at the annual Mother Languages Literary Festival in Islamabad, he gave a major address on social media and the internet as a medium for Urdu literature, outlining the structure of a multi-faceted site to serve writers and readers worldwide.
Originally from Karachi, Pakistan, Ali is a practicing psychiatrist. He lives in Roanoke, Virginia. Robert Schultz is an author and exhibiting artist. His previous books include three collections of poetry—most recently Into the New World—as well as a novel, a work of historical nonfiction, and a collaboration with photographer Binh Danh, War Memoranda: Photography, Walt Whitman, and Memorials. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Award, Cornell University's Corson Bishop Poetry Prize, and, from Virginia Quarterly Review, the Emily Clark Balch Prize for Poetry. Schultz's artwork is held by the U.S. Library of Congress, the University of Virginia special collections library, and by private collectors in the U.S. and abroad. He has spoken at Oxford University, the National Gallery of Art, and at colleges, universities, galleries, and museums. He has taught at Luther College, Cornell University, the University of Virginia, and served for 14 years as the John P. Fishwick Professor of English at Roanoke College. He now works full time as a writer and artist. He lives in Salem, Virginia.