MONUMENT

"Manahil Bandukwala's MONUMENT is a profound evocation of unbelonging. What is it, for example, to 'unbelong' as a mode of consciousness (observing one's life from 'a vantage point')? Bandukwala approaches this question through the senses, exploring vectors from 'the incorporeal part of you' to deeply felt iterations of desire: the 'question of intimacy.' In one astonishing poem, '1628,' the word 'Empire' is licked from a lover's back, leaving the taste of ash and something rotting in the mouth: 'On your back I kissed empire then / smudged it off, tasted dirt on tongue tip / worms crawled their way out of the holes / of my body.' Grief and need comprise a 'love language as architecture,' in this deeply felt and brilliant debut collection." - Bhanu Kapil

"Bandukwala is a lyric truth-teller, exposing the secrets of a royal family corrupted by violence. Through intimate conversations with the spirit of Mughal Empress Mumtaz Mahal, we view a life cut short and fashioned into a false narrative. Now I want to return to Agra with MONUMENT in hand so I too might 'walk the labyrinth / and listen to your footsteps/echoing.'" - Farzana Doctor

"I will not call Manahil Bandukwala's MONUMENT beautiful - not because it is not so, but because starting and ending with this adjective would be an insult in the context of lines such as 'I saw his love start / and end with your beauty.' Gendering, conquest, structural violence, power, history - how one hand has managed to embrace the weight and wide sweep of these materials feels incomprehensible. Bandukwala's language is lushly lyrical and profoundly intimate, with a control that reveals mastery. Keenly thoughtful and wholly restorative, MONUMENT is 'an empire overgrown with hibiscus and sunflower,' reminding us that it is 'not too late to teach of love's abundance.' A sensitive, urgent, astonishing, masterful, and necessary debut." - Doyali Islam