When Sleep Journeys first appeared in 1981, it took the Urdu poetry world by storm. Now considered one of the finest contemporary Urdu poets, Azra Abbas was among the first to embrace experimental, free verse poetry. A single book-length poem, divided into three cantos, Sleep Journeys is a dreamlike rumination that explores faith, female desire, and the subconscious mind. Abbas’s language is simple and austere, the complexity of the work emerging through repetition, interweaving, and juxtaposition. The result is a gossamer thread that leads the reader through a labyrinth of metaphor, imagery, and awe.
Award-winning translator Daisy Rockwell expertly captures the rhythm and flow of the original. The result is a book that ushers us into a state between sleeping and waking, the world of hidden thoughts and desires. This edition brings one of the most celebrated Urdu poems of the latter twentieth century to a broader, worldwide readership.