Kalidasa

Kalidasa, perhaps the most extraordinary of India's classical poets, composed seven major works: three plays, two epic poems and two lyric poems. According to legend, he lived at the end of the fourth century, and was one the 'nine jewels' in the court of the Gupta king Chandragupta II. Although very little is known about his life, Kalidasa's popularity has endured for centuries. // Hank Heifetz is an award-winning translator (from classical Indian languages and Spanish), poet and novelist. His many works include The Origin of the Young God, selected as one of the twenty-five best books of the year by the New York Village Voice in 1990, and The Four Hundred Poems of War and Wisdom, translated from classical Tamil (with George Hart), which was awarded the prize for best literary translation from a South Asian Language (2002) by the American Oriental Society. At present he is working on a novel and finishing a long literary translation of the ornate Sanskrit epic Sisupalavadha by the poet Magha.