Kunwar Narain was born in 1927, spending his early years in Ayodhya and Faizabad, before moving to Lucknow and then later, Delhi. His literary output spans more than half a century, comprising poetry, short stories, literary criticism, essays, translations and varied writings on cinema, music, history and art. His works have been translated nationally and internationally. He is the winner of the Kabir Samman, Sahitya Akademi Award, Kumaran Asan, Vyas Samman, Shalaka Saman, Warsaw University's honorary medal and Italy's Premio Feronia
No Other World is the first book-length collection of Kunwar Narain's poems in English, translated by his son, Apurva Narain, selected from five volumes of his poetry across as many decades. The poems are a complex interplay of metaphysical imagination, playful irony and tentative sentiment. They course through history, intimate and meditative by turns, sometimes addressing socio-political realities and sometimes the absurd, at all times exhibiting the almost painful honesty so characteristic of Narain's poetry.
