MONUMENT by Manahil Bandukwala

MONUMENT upturns notions of love, monumentalisation, and empire by exploring buried facets of Mumtaz Mahal’s story. The collection layers linear time and geographical space to chart the continuing presence of historical legacies. It considers what alternate futures could have been possible. Who are we when we continue to make the same mistakes? Beyond distance, time, and boundaries, what do we still carry?

Praise for MONUMENT:

“In its against-the-grain scrutiny of the story of the woman who inspired the world-famous Taj Mahal, Monument subverts prevailing notions of empire, history, myth and love. Bandukwala challenges us to dismantle the false narrative of a spectacular monument with lyric poems that push the boundaries of the form. This is an intimate and compelling debut.” — from the jurors of the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award

“Monument undertakes one hell of a challenge: turning the monumental into the momentary. Yet, Bandukwala achieves it with a lyrical precision that makes us forget linear history and enter a world where memory of the future is possible.” — April Thompson, Geist

“Manahil Bandukwala’s MONUMENT is a profound evocation of unbelonging. What is it, for example, to ‘unbelong’ as a mode of consciousness (observing one’s life from ‘a vantage point’)? Bandukwala approaches this question through the senses, exploring vectors from ‘the incorporeal part of you’ to deeply felt iterations of desire: the ‘question of intimacy.’ In one astonishing poem, ‘1628,’ the word ‘Empire’ is licked from a lover’s back, leaving the taste of ash and something rotting in the mouth: ‘On your back I kissed empire then / smudged it off, tasted dirt on tongue tip / worms crawled their way out of the holes / of my body.’ Grief and need comprise a ‘love language as architecture,’ in this deeply felt and brilliant debut collection.” — Bhanu Kapil

“Bandukwala is a lyric truth-teller, exposing the secrets of a royal family corrupted by violence. Through intimate conversations with the spirit of Mughal Empress Mumtaz Mahal, we view a life cut short and fashioned into a false narrative. Now I want to return to Agra with MONUMENT in hand so I too might ‘walk the labyrinth / and listen to your footsteps/echoing.'” — Farzana Doctor

“I will not call Manahil Bandukwala’s MONUMENT beautiful — not because it is not so, but because starting and ending with this adjective would be an insult in the context of lines such as ‘I saw his love start / and end with your beauty.’ Gendering, conquest, structural violence, power, history — how one hand has managed to embrace the weight and wide sweep of these materials feels incomprehensible. Bandukwala’s language is lushly lyrical and profoundly intimate, with a control that reveals mastery. Keenly thoughtful and wholly restorative, MONUMENT is ‘an empire overgrown with hibiscus and sunflower,’ reminding us that it is ‘not too late to teach of love’s abundance.’ A sensitive, urgent, astonishing, masterful, and necessary debut.” — Doyali Islam

Press Coverage

“Taking inspiration from Irfan Ali, Danez Smith, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and the “folktales that linger,” Bandukwala’s debut is steeped in the history of South Asia, interrogating its beauty, violence, and grand narratives, turning toward braided stories and resonant feminism.” — Shazia Hafiz Ramji in Quill & Quire