The Sand Libraries of Timbuktu: Poems

‘Rohinton Daruwala’s poems unfold like a baramasa, an almanac of seasons and sensations, exquisite torments and explosions of delight. He essays a sensuous portraiture of place, invoking torrential monsoons, arid summers, railway bridges at night, libraries in deserts. [He] spells out a frank eroticism in the textures and flavours of fruit... at the same time, [he] is entangled in the hypermodern present. He gathers traces of the loved one from residues both material and digital... [He] maps the city, not only through the portraiture of human protagonists, but also through the micro-ecologies inhabited by butterflies and sparrows... In Daruwala’s handling, the poem can be an oblique parable, a brief lamp of wisdom in the wind of distraction: light as breath, yet as essential.’—Ranjit Hoskote