by Rashmy
Translated from Tamil by Nedra Rodrigo
Winner of the 2024 PEN-SALT Award from English PEN.
ISBN: 9781069370426
Poetry | Translation | Tamil
July 2026 | OPEN TO PRE-ORDER
(*draft book cover)
Book Description
Where does seawater mingled with ashes stratify into rock?
How will the final cry, pleading for life, gather strength?
Rashmy writes poetry in a Tamil unique to the East Coast of Sri Lanka, embedded in its ecologies and heavily influenced by its folklore, centuries of trade, and echoes of Qur'anic cadence. His work is both archive and testimony, making him one of the most significant contemporary poets of in the Tamil language.
In அடைவுகாலத்தின்பாடல்கள் | Songs in a Time of Confinement, Rashmy reveals the pandemic to be a time of recollection for survivors of other catastrophes like war and exile. Counting time through a hundred and one poems, the poet unravels memories of homeland, love, desire, war, faith, hauntings, and isolation – recalling youthful passions and separations, confinement during wartime, and the uncertainties of sudden and uncontrollable change.
Displaced by war and haunted by the landscape he treasures, the poet insists on the work of memory to resist the erasures of violence and time.
Presented here in Nedra Rodrigo's award-winning translation, this bilingual Tamil/English edition includes Rashmy's original artwork, offering a vital contribution to archives of Tamil Ilankai war-related poetry and the literature of exile and displacement.
BIOGRAPHIES
Rashmy [Mohamed Rashmy Ahamed] is a journalist, poet, writer and artist. Born in Akkaraipattu on the east coast of Sri Lanka, he moved into exile in the UK in [x]. Rashmy has published four acclaimed collections of poetry in Tamil and is recognized as one of the most vital contemporary poets from the island.
Nedra Rodrigo is a literary scholar, writer, editor, translator, and curator. Her publications include her translations of Devakanthan's quintet, and numerous essays and translations in various journals. She is the co-editor of Tamil Terrains, a bilingual anthology of Tamil poetry and prose. Her work on Songs in a Time of Confinement for trace press received the PEN-SALT award from English PEN in 2024.