Songs in a Time of Confinement

In Adaivukaalathin Paadalkal 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 curfews, confinement during wartime, and the uncertainties of sudden and uncontrollable change. Displaced by war and haunted by the landscape he treasures, he writes: "how shall I say this my son/ your sea is different."

Presented here in Nedra Rodrigo's award-winning translation, and illustrated with Rashmy's woodcuts, this bilingual Tamil/English edition contributes to a vital archive of Tamil war-related writing from Ilankai.