Treasurer of Piggy Banks - Vinod Kumar Shukla (Translated by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra) - Poetry

A literary masterwork from one of India's most profound contemporary voices. Treasurer of Piggy Banks brings together a uniquely beautiful, meticulously crafted collection of poems by the legendary Vinod Kumar Shukla, rendered into English with exceptional precision by poet-translator Arvind Krishna Mehrotra.

Vinod Kumar Shukla’s poetry acts as both a meticulous record and a expansive body of knowledge. His lens zooms in on the quiet, often overlooked corners of our existence—a kitchen, a suburban lane, a dusty bus-stop, or a bustling market—to examine our relationship with the universe. His writing is characterized by a "mathematical-scientific" logic, utilizing tautology and the clarity of the obvious to reach truths that lie deep beneath the surface of daily life. As the poems unfold, a liberating realization glimmers through: while the universe and our specific place within it remain ultimately unknowable, it is the reader who arrives at the illumination.

A winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award and the prestigious 2023 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature, Shukla has spent decades redefining Hindi literature. Treasurer of Piggy Banks is more than a book of poems; it is an indispensable archive of the human condition, inviting readers to slow down and observe the world with the same gentle, intense curiosity as the poet himself.

Why This Essential Poetry Collection Belongs on Your Shelf:

• Award-Winning Literary Brilliance: Authored by the 2023 PEN/Nabokov Award recipient, a giant of contemporary Indian letters.

• Uniquely Mathematical & Scientific Prose: Offers a reading experience unlike any other, blending rigorous logic with the profound mystery of the everyday.

• Masterful Translation: Translated by renowned poet Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, ensuring the rhythmic, contemplative, and linguistic genius of Shukla’s work is perfectly captured for the English reader.