Spinoza's Overcoat: Poets

- Blurb -

'It starts to rain as I stepout of my hotel ....' So begins Subhash Jaireth's striking collection ofessays on the writers, and their writing, that have enriched his own life. Theworks of Franz Kafka, Marina Tsvetaeva, Mikhail Bulgakov, Paul Celan, HiromiIto, Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza and others ignite in him the urge totravel (both physically and in spirit), almost like a pilgrim, to the placeswhere such writers were born or died or wrote. In each essay a new emotionalplane is reached revealing enticing connections. As a novelist, poet, essayistand translator born into a multilingual environment, Jaireth trulyunderstands the power of words across languages and their integral connectionsto life of the body and the spirit. Drawing on years of research, translationand travel Spinoza's Overcoat - and its illuminations of loss,mortality and the reverie of writing - will linger with readers.'Eloquent and original, Jaireth's meditationson the lives-of-poets are full of astonishing details, tender connections andthe magnificent melancholy of devotion to words. Encompassing matters oftranslation, love, mortality and homage, this is a rare model of what might becalled "literary philosophy" and an utter joy and surprise for anyoneinterested in the reading and writing life ...' - GAIL JONES, author of The Death of Noah GlassSubhash Jaireth was born in India. Between 1969 and 1978 he spent nineyears in Russia studying geology and Russian literature. In 1986 he migrated toAustralia. He has published writing in Hindi, English and Russian and his novelAfter Love (Transit Lounge 2012) waspublished in Spain in 2018.