‘… the word that defines my life: Later. Mine has been a life that will be lived later.’ In A Life Lived Later: Poems, his first collection of verse, Anurag Mathur, best-selling author of The Inscrutable Americans and Making the Minister Smile, looks back on varied life experiences. From a loving portrait of a grandfather and fleeting childhood reminiscences of ‘cricket on a turning track’, to youthful passions and sad farewells, he weaves his words around themes that are intensely personal, yet universal. Even as he writes of belonging and identity, of lost loves, the agony of ‘talent’, and the road not taken, his verse evokes memories of languid walks ‘through the streets of my youth’ and glorious sunsets, ‘painted’ by ‘some unbelievably talented God’. Deeply felt and passionate, imbued with nostalgic yearning, these poems resonate in our minds long after we have read them.