A Tale of Two Gardens collects the poetry from over 40 years of Nobel
Prize winner Octavio Paz's many and various commitments to India - as
Mexican ambassador, student of Indian philosophy, and above all, as
poet. Despite having written many acclaimed non-fiction books on the
region, he has always considered those writings to be footnotes to the
poems. From the long work "Mutra, " written in 1952 and accompanied here
by a new commentary by the author, to the celebrated poems of East
Slope, and his recent adaptations from the classical Sanskrit, Paz
scripts his India with a mixture of deft sensualism and hands-on
politics.