This is a lovely collection of poetry by a poet from Mauritius who writes in French and translated lovely by Kazim Ali. The collection is very brief, though, and half of the book is taken up with an interview between the poet and the translator as well as some literary criticism of her work. While these add some to the understanding of the poems, the poems themselves do not need all this background material; they stand strongly on their own about issues of femininity, sexuality, and colonial politics.

I love reading poetry, but I always find it difficult to review. It somehow feels like a more personal and intimate experience which ironically does not help me express my feelings the way I would want to.
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When the Night Agrees to Speak to Me was a delight to read, especially since it was a bilingual edition. I had never read any poetry by Devi before, so this was a great introduction to her work.
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Devi touches on many subjects in her poems such as death and the passage of time. Her poems are short and fluid. The language flows and it is rife with beautiful imagery. The words were simply dancing in front of me. It was a magnificent experience that I would be happy to repeat.
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25
Quand la nuit consent à me parler
C’est à la lame
Qu’elle émince
Les lieux de certitude
Qu’elle mutile
Les aimés en solitude

Quand la nuit consent à me parler
C’est pour me dire
Les mots qui n’ont pas su
Inciser dans mes mains
L’infamie longtemps tue
Belles racines de folie

Quand la nuit consent à me parler
C’est me tournant le dos
Parce que nul arbre ne pousse
Sur le lisse de ma peau
Je n’ai pas bien souffert
Ni bien ri ni bien aimé
Le peu ne la contente pas
Ni amie ni ennemie
Elle voudrait que je danse.

25
When the night agrees to speak to me
It is with a blade
That slices Into the places of certainty
That carves
Love into loneliness

When the night agrees to speak to me
It is to tell me
The words that didn’t know
How to cut into my hands
An infamy long unsaid
Sweet lines of madness

When the night agrees to speak to me
It is with its back turned
Because neither tree nor sapling
Grows from my smooth skin
I haven’t suffered enough
Nor laughed well nor loved enough
It will not be content with just a little
Neither lover nor enemy
It wants me to dance.
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Thank you to Harper Perennial and NetGalley for providing me with this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

I really enjoyed this collection! It was a little strange to have to skip to all of the translated portions, but nothing too confusing until about halfway through when it started going back and forth between translated and untranslated in the middle of the paragraphs. This is just a general formatting problem, so I am trying not to factor it into my review of the book, but it did make reading quite difficult at some points. I connected to the beginning poems especially and found the language to be very intentional and moving. When I arrived at the "When the Night Agrees to Speak to Me" poem, I was blown away by the impact it had on me! Overall, I didn't feel like there was a lot of dynamic going from poem to poem, but I very much enjoyed this read!

This was so good and lovely! The book was full of beautiful imagery and stories, and being able to read the side-by-side French and English text, even with my very limited French, was really cool! This collection completely reflects this line from one of its poems: it is "reaching out for poetry because without it words die a slow death."

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins Publishers India for giving me access to this book before it was published.
This book was translated from French. I enjoyed some of the short poems but the longer prose did not translate well and was very choppy and too incongruous to draw a good picture/feeling from.

Wonderful and satisfying read. Ananda Devi’s lyrical prose has long reminded me of poetry, and so reading her words in this form makes complete sense. And if anything, it comes even more alive in the dynamic, boundary-breaking depth of it, not just the beauty and sensuousness of her sentiments, but the constraints it speaks to and the injection of fluidity in these spaces of possibility. This is well discussed in the write-ups and interviews that follow her work, on the writing and the translation of it, the kind of rewarding exchange a reader seeks after the work ends, to further enrich the reading experience. Thank you!

This is a beautifully written book. This book of poetry is basically all done in the French language. It is interpreted in to English. I had studied French in a university in Washington D. C. I mostly forgot the language because I never used it. But this book is beautiful, even in the English languaget. The 3 prize that were written in the back got a little confused because the French wording was mixed in with the English which made it hard to read. But still good. At the end of the book, you got an interview with the author that was so intresting. I loved this book.

I received a free copy of the book and is voluntarily writing a review

‘When the night agrees to speak to me’ is a great modern poetry collection. With each poem written out in both French and English you experience the authenticity often lost when books are in translation, even if like me your French is severely lacking. The collection covers the plights of love and being a woman in the modern age and is great for those hungry for more poetry of womanhood.

Thank you NetGalley and Harper Perennial India for the chance to read and review When The Night Agrees to Speak To Me by Ananda Devi!

This is the first time I’m hearing of Ananda Devi, and this is also the first time I’m reading a book by an author from Mauritius.

“That my tomorrow be a yesterday
Since nothing is left to accomplish
Nothing to build or to destroy
Nothing has already become: Never. “

As a whole this is a small book! Most of the poems are short, and the book also contains an interview with her. I liked the interview because I feel like I got to know her a bit better as a result, and there are a few poems that really stood out to me.