The Humble Administrator's Garden

By Vikram Seth

Categories: Literature & Fiction

The Humble Administrator's Garden (1985) was Vikram Seth's second book of poems. Its three sections are named for trees, the wutong, the neem and the live oak, and they draw on his time in China, India and California, where he was a graduate student at Stanford. The poems use traditional rhyme and meter for scenes of travel, family, friendship and solitude, and some echo classical Chinese verse.

Recommended by 1 person

• Fareed Zakaria: “And Vikram Seth, whose most astonishing work is a novel in verse, “The Golden Gate,” written in iambic tetrameter and modeled on Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin.” As you read it, you are charmed by the story while still aware and in awe of Seth’s talent.”