As I don’t have a copy of Ezekiel’s book, The Unfinished Man, I asked a friend who has a sort of “Ezekiel collection” if he has a copy of this book.
Just received word from him that he does.
That made me want to find out how many copies of this book are in public libraries anywhere in the world. So I asked my favourite AI-driven search engine. It tells me that the book is in 66 public libraries, as far as can be determined by that engine.
Not bad.
I guess, in today’s world, even one digital copy is enough to ensure its availability in principle to everyone on earth – a bit of a privilege when so many books have been entirely eliminated due to fires and other accidental or deliberate causes.
But the engine also tells me that the book went into seven editions – a fact of which I was entirely unaware. And that is a bit of an astonishment to me, as I had not realised that the book had had such an interesting run.
On enquiring further of my search engine, I discover, to my even greater astonishment, that not one of his books of poems have been translated into any other language – though, to my mind, they are much more “translatable” than the work of numerous other poets.
Perhaps his birth centenary this year will create an interest in the hearts of at least a few individuals around the world to make a volume of selected translations of Ezekiel’s poems available in other languages.
Meanwhile, it would be useful to have a list of any of his individual poems that have been translated into any other language.
– Prabhu Guptara
