City of Mirrors: Songs of Lalan Sai

Carol Salomon dedicated over thirty years of her life to researching, translating and annotating this compilation of songs by the Bengali poet and mystical philosopher lalan Sai (popularly transliterated as lalon) who lived in the village of cheuriya in Bengal in the latter half of the nineteenth century. One major objective of his lyrical riddles was to challenge the restrictions of cultural, political and sexual identity and his songs accordingly express a longing to understand humanity, its duties and its ultimate destiny. His songs also contain thinly veiled references to esoteric yogic practices (sadhana), including body-centered hathayogic techniques that are related to those found in Buddhist, ka ul a, Natha and Sufi medieval tantric literature. Dr. Salomon’s translation of the work is the first dedicated English translation of lalan’s songs to closely follow the Bangle text, with all of its dialectical variations and is here produced alongside the original text.