50 Poems: 30 Selected 20 New

The 30 Selected and 20 New that comprise 50 POEMS have been chosen to present a concise and representative volume of Zulfikar Ghose' poetry for the general reader and for scholars specialising in contemporary English poetry and post-colonial literature.
The earliest of the selected poems-first published almost fifty years ago in The Times Literary Supplement, The London Magazine, New Statesman, The Spectator, and broadcast on the BBC Third Programme-established Zulfikar Ghose as Pakistan's premier English-language poet. Deracination, an obsessive theme in the early work, resonates as a metaphor for the human condition and gives the poems their universal appeal.
The new poems draw upon a wider experience, ranging from an elegy on Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan to a meditation on an old Argentine bank note, all heightened by a philosophical underpinning which is a hallmark of Zulfikar Ghose' work. An impeccable craftsman and creator of striking images, whose themes touch the core of human experience, he is a poet of lasting significance: 50 POEMS presents his essential work.

Born in 1935, in Sialkot, Pakistan, Zulfikar Ghose has lived in England and the United States for much of his life. He was educated at Sloane School, London, where the headmaster, Guy Boas, a Shakespeare scholar, encouraged him to write, and at Keele University where he received his BA in English and Philosophy. He edited the university’s literary magazine and the national anthology, Universities’ Poetry. After graduating, he lived in London where he worked as a cricket and hockey reporter for The Observer, wrote book reviews for the TLS and The Spectator, regularly contributed to the Arts page of The Western Daily Press in Bristol and also worked as a school teacher. In 1969, he was invited by the University of Texas at Austin to teach where he held the distinguished position of Susan Taylor McDaniel Regents Professor in Creative Writing. He retired in 2007. He continues to live in Austin with his wife, the Brazilian artist Helena de la Fontaine.