Lal Ded, Habba Khatun, Rupa Bhavani, Arnimal: these four women poets, dating from different periods in the history of Kashmir, are household names in the valley and are claimed by all, no matter what religious, ethnic or other group they belong to. In this beautiful volume, Neerja Mattoo brings their work together for the first time, placing it in two traditions, the mystic and the lyric. Fine and nuanced translations of their poems are accompanied by brief introductions to their work that place the women in a historical context and deal with both the facts and the beliefs about their work.

Jalal al-Din Rumi, a towering figure in the Persian-speaking world, is currently the most widely published poet in English translation. Yet despite the popularity of his verse, the majority of scholarship on his work focuses not on Rumi's poetry but on his contributions as a mystic. Fatemeh Keshavarz's pioneering study is the first extensive critical examination of this vast, dynamic body of literature. Through close readings of the Divan, his collection of more than 35,000 lyric verses, she explores Rumi's extraordinary popular and critical literary success.