I Am the Beggar of the World by Anthology and translated by Eliza Griswold

This is poetry from Afghanistan.

I Am the Beggar of the World by Anthology translated by Eliza Griswold is published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This is a Book originally written in Pashto. This was published in 2014.0 and has the ISBN of 9.78037419187E12.

I Am the Beggar of the World is an anthology translated by Eliza Griswold from Pashto, gathering Pashto-language poetry from Afghanistan through an anthology of Pashto women’s landays, where brevity, danger, and oral tradition carry enormous force. Its value comes from chorus rather than singular authorship, so I would not treat it as one poet’s private weather. The better entrance is through beggar, world, women, and the couplet as a small vessel for survival and defiance. Anthologies can become maps, but the best ones also leave room for wandering, disagreement, and surprise. I Am the Beggar of the World belongs in the translated poetry library because it gives Afghan Pashto poetry a necessary collective presence shaped by wit, grief, courage, and song. It gives a reader several doors into a tradition before asking them to choose only one.

If you’d like to see international poetry continue and gain traction, consider requesting this work from your local library, or purchasing it from places like Open Books (a poetry only bookstore), Asterism Books (an independent press distributor), or bookshop.org to connect you with your local bookstores.

Check out more of the always in-progress translated poetry index here.