Rococo and Other Worlds

"Widely known as a powerful contemporary voice in both classical and modern Urdu poetic expression, Syed has not previously had a full collection translated into English. ...Syed leaps across continents and takes on the classics, modern warfare, great love, the pleasure of eating ice cream for the first time, and much, much more. ...I feel no hesitation in saying he creates something marvelous, something breathtaking and wholly unfamiliar in its scope in Rococo and Other Worlds."

~Molly Jean Bennett, The Hollins Critic

"A powerful narrative of human solitude and alienation, the gentle and at times explosive rhythms of Rococo and Other Worlds linger in the mind long after the poems are read and contemplated. A modern sensibility profoundly informed by the finest liberal traditions of classical Urdu poetry at its best."

~Muhammad Umar Memon, professor Urdu and Persian literature and Islamic studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison

"Rococo usually refers to baroque style, playful and elaborate rhythms and ornament, but other worlds also leap and scream from these poems—images of violent history as Tacitus, Goya, or Kafka saw it. A sense of danger pervades a desperate and eroticized human search for safety. It's a dark vision, near surrealist, painfully unique."

~David Ray, author of Sam's Book and After Tagore

"A powerful narrative of human solitude and alienation, the gentle and at times explosive rhythms of Rococo and Other Worlds linger in the mind long after the poems are read and contemplated. A modern sensibility profoundly informed by the finest liberal traditions of classical Urdu poetry at its best."

~Muhammad Umar Memon, professor Urdu and Persian literature and Islamic studies, University of WisconsinMadison