ROMEN BASU is one of the most significant contemporary Indian novelists in English. Preoccupied throughout his long prolific career are images that reveal the nature of being alive in the twentieth century. Many of his novels speak out his innermost feelings through form and metaphors of much power. As he has matured over the years his concern for truth and the realities of everyday, life in India have led him in new directions, as for instance his novel on the Punjab, the one on Bengal, and the one in the offing on the tragedy of Kashmir. But despite his over dozen novels Romen Basu has evinced a keen love for poetry. One of his earlier volumes of verse, Wings at a Distance, at once established him as a fresh new voice of full-throated spontaneity on the Indian scene. The poet in the novelist has an eye for salient detail and nuance, and his poetry betrays a mind given to inner meditation. The work also at moments conveys a sense of ambivalence but one that nevertheless strives for completeness. This poet makes a definite contribution to the mysterious importance of existence.