Split World: Poems 1990-2005 - Softcover

Moniza Alvi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1852248025 ISBN 13: 9781852248024

Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd, 2008

Synopsis

Moniza Alvi left Pakistan for England when a few months old. In her early work, she drew on real and imagined homelands in poems which are 'vivid, witty and imbued with unexpected and delicious glimpses of the surreal - this poet's third country' (Maura Dooley). Her less autobiographical later books are concerned not only with divisions between East and West but also with the interplay between inner and outer worlds, imagination and reality, physical and spiritual. "Split World" is published at the same time as Moniza Alvi's latest collection, "Europa", and includes poems from five previous collection: "The Country at My Shoulder" (1993), "A Bowl of Warm Air" (1996), "Carrying My Wife" (2000), "Souls" (2002) and "How the Stone Found Its Voice" (2005).

About this title

Review:

Alvi is a bold surrealist, whose poems open the world up in new, imaginatively absurd ways. --Ruth Padel, Independent

Much of Alvi's work engages with a surreal or fantastical world of fractured and partially recovered identity, working through sequences in her most recent poetry. --Deryn Rees-Jones, Modern Women Poets

Moniza Alvi's world is a place of wild energy...Alvi's voice has achieved a relaxed naturalness, a fluidity which allows her to present these delicious, extraordinary poems as though it were easy. --Kathleen Jamie & Hugo Williams, PBS Bulletin

About the Author:

Moniza Alvi was born in Pakistan and grew up in Hertfordshire. After working for many years as a secondary school teacher, she is now a freelance writer and tutor, and lives in London. Her latest books are Europa (2008), a Poetry Book Society Choice which has been shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize, and Split World: Poems 1990-2005 (2008), which includes poems from her five previous collections, The Country at My Shoulder (1993), A Bowl of Warm Air (1996), Carrying My Wife (2000), Souls (2002) and How the Stone Found Its Voice (2005). The Country at My Shoulder was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot and Whitbread poetry prizes, and Carrying My Wife was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. She received a Cholmondeley Award in 2002.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1852248025
• ISBN 13: 9781852248024
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304