Description

If writing is protest, then writing hope is a powerful, reverberating protest amidst the din of doomsday prophesying that we have come to expect. The stories in this book function on the grand stage that is Time itself: past-present-future, looping, stretching, compressing, endless, infinite, yet finite in every living moment. The poetic tone is deeply meditative, turning inwards to access sources of hope as well as excavate what lies beneath, what holds the secrets to resilience and resurgence, to restoration and revival.

Let the uniqueness of this book impel you to read, then sit back, let the music of its language, the richness of its images, its vision and world-building flood your senses. For this collection presents the writer at her collective and individual best: as poet, writer, translator and the recreator of myths for a newer world, one in which earth rises once again. The canvas, the scope, the width of vision and imagination, of compassion and belonging, is vast, all-encompassing, all-embodied. This is a book of stories at a heightened level of invoking, querying, demanding answers, seeking pathways towards a single goal — of the earth rising.

The subject of time is endless, fascinating, even mind boggling. Therefore, I ask you to narrow the focus and look at your outstretched hand. Like five fingers branching out, time in this collection opens in five spatial directions, from the cupping palm. And since this is speculative fiction, there is a sixth.

Pasts Re-Presented: mythic time, unique in each individual’s imagination

Now: slipperiness we slide through, seemingly unable to hear its heartbeat

Ten Years from Now: multiple, depending on where one is, and to what species one belongs

In the Near Future: oddly familiar and disturbingly unreal, when you have ceased to exist

In the Far Future: unknown and uncanny, possibly like mercury-lined clouds

Prophecies That Come True: a remembering of future potentials and past wisdoms

Priya Sarukkai Chabria is a poet, writer, translator and literary curator. Her publications include five poetry collections, two SF novels, translations from Classical Tamil, and literary nonfiction. As Founding Editor of Poetry at Sangam she recently edited the anthology The Dragon’s Heart: World Poetry in Translation (2025). She won the Muse India Translation Prize, Kitaab Experimental Story Award, Best Reads from Feminist Press and Outstanding Contribution to Literature by the Indian government. Residencies include Writer’s Centre, Norwich; Sun Yat-Sen International Writers Program, Guangzhou and Indian Institute of Advanced Studies. She has presented at Commonwealth Literature Conference, Innsbruck, UCLA, JLF, etc. She has curated seminars and folios for the Indian Academy of Literature, Raza Foundation, Sahapedia, etc. Priya has performed in multidisciplinary collaborations across India. Her engagement with Sanskrit aesthetics and Tamil Sangam poetics has been widely published. www.priyasarukkaichabria.com.