Poetry

For centuries, the Kalmyk people of the Eurasian steppe have preserved Jangar, a magnificent heroic epic celebrating courage, loyalty, and the survival of their nomadic culture. At its centre is Jangar, the legendary ruler of Bumba, a mythical land of abundance and harmony where seventy kingdoms unite under his leadership. Surrounded by extraordinary warriors, Jangar defends his homeland against formidable enemies, monstrous giants, and rival rulers. His companions undertake daring quests, rescue captives, defeat powerful adversaries, and demonstrate remarkable feats of strength and bravery. Blending fantastical adventures with lyrical descriptions of horses, feasts, battles, and the steppe landscape, the epic reflects the ideals and aspirations of the Kalmyk people. Preserved through generations of oral performance by traditional storytellers, Jangar also bears witness to a culture that has endured conquest, displacement, and political repression. Saglar Bougdaeva’s English translation introduces international readers to this remarkable literary heritage, restoring a largely overlooked masterpiece of Eurasian oral literature to the world.

What happens when poetry refuses to obey the rules of language, logic, and reality? This collection brings together two visionary poets who helped reshape modern literature: Russian Futurist Velimir Khlebnikov and French avant-garde writer Guillaume Apollinaire. Moving between animals, art, love, revolution, war, and the mysteries of time, their poems reveal radically different ways of seeing the world. Khlebnikov experiments with language and explores the hidden patterns of history, while Apollinaire blends lyrical beauty with daring modernist invention. Translated by Robert Chandler, this collection invites readers into a world where words become experiments, familiar things turn strange, and poetry imagines entirely new possibilities for human experience.