Leaving

Anar (Issath Rehana Mohamed Azeem) is one of Sri Lanka's most celebrated poets. Urgent, embodied and shockingly direct, her work presses into service classical Tamil landscapes, contemporary feminist thought and Koranic imagery to explore the aftermath of the civil war and the subtle terrors of living as a woman in Sri Lanka today. This selection draws from Anar's five award-winning collections to present a devastating poetic voice for our times.

From the harrowing aftermath of the civil war to the subtle terrors of societal expectation, the poet Anar chronicles female experiences in Sri Lanka today. Her poems avoid neat classifications such as narrative, allegory or lyric, instead, she combines genre and traditions as she sees fit to say whatever needs saying. Her poems draw on a diverse field of reference from classical Tamil mythic landscapes to contemporary feminist thought, from Koranic imagery to personal history.

"Anar's poetry is sensual, subversive, explosive. The images she conjures are dream-like and haunting. Even when Anar writes about trauma, she takes shelter in beauty. These translations, by Hari Rajaledchumy working with the English-language poet Fran Lock, are elegant and brilliant."

• Meena Kandasamy