Guest and Host

Poems From Calcutta

Winter Joe

"Guest and Host" records the experience of being welcomed into the household of a foreign country. At some distance from the travel-book viewpoint of the outsider-looking-in, Winter is able to capture the country in a deeper light through staying rather than travelling, and living rather than merely observing. The sonnet-sequence "Guest and Host" is complemented by a powerful poem on the 2001 earthquake at Kutch; a fascinating sequence based on the reminiscences of an infantry officer of the British Raj; and a dramatic poem on Durga, the goddess of Calcutta's annual festival of Durga Puja.

About the Author

Joe Winter, born in London in 1943, taught English in secondary schools in London from 1967 to 1994. He lived in Calcutta from 1994 to 2006 before returning to England. His Bengali translations include Das's "Naked Lonely Hand" and "Bengal the Beautiful", and "Tagore's Song Offerings" (Gitanjali), "Lipika" (stories) and, with Devadatta Joardar, "Of Myself" (essays). His Calcutta poems are collected in "Guest and Host" (2003). He received the Tagore Institute of Calcutta's 2006 award for the propagation of Tagore's work. He now teaches in Sussex.

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