Souls

The souls inhabit us "as if our faces were portraits in galleries - and stare out of us until they are tired of looking," writes Moniza Alvi in one of these delightfully paradoxical and daringly imaginative poems . . . 'We only know about life. To the souls, we're the real immortals.'

The troubled and troublesome souls are characters in her sequence The Further Adventures of the Souls whose escapades touch different facets of life and death, exploring tantalising dualities through delicious transformations. Their moods and desires dart about on the edge of daily reality, revealing as much about ourselves as our own fantasies.

The other poems in Souls, while different in approach, are equally strong evocations of the fragility of life, exploring birth, death and parenthood with a sure wit and lightness of touch.

'These poems are about what is just out of reach, what cannot ever quite be captured but can be imagined with such delicacy that it becomes real' - Helen Dunmore, Observer

'Alvi is a bold surrealist, whose poems open the world up in new, imaginatively absurd ways' - Ruth Padel, Independent

'Moniza Alvi's world is a place of wild energyŠAlvi's voice has achieved a relaxed naturalness, a fluidity which allows her to present these delicious, extraordinary poems as though it were easy' - Kathleen Jamie and Hugo Williams, PBS Bulletin