Echoes of my other self (Professor Colin Gardner)

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September 10, 2014

“The volume contains pieces on a variety of themes – religious poems, love poems, philosophical poems, poems of social and political concern. Through all of them, one senses the poet’s personality – sensitive, meditative, scrupulous, passionate, humane. Banoobhai’s apprehension of society and its pains and injustices is grounded, then, in an impassioned sense of the possibilities of human expansion and human relationships”.

Professor Colin Gardner – University of Kwa-Zulu Natal

Echoes of my other self (Douglas Livingstone)

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September 10, 2014




I first came to know Shabbir through his poems when I was struck by the clean simplistic line he generally favoured. But the simplicity was deceptive: he made each word (a sign of the true poet) carry great emotional and intellectual weight. An obsessive and talented poet, a precocious master of the Word and a fine lyricist to boot, almost every line of the work was subliminally ignited by the ancient great Islamic poets. He shares their prime qualities: sensuality, passion, brilliance of imagery, a holistic approach to nature, and love of God.

Knowing Shabbir Banoobhai, the man through his work, can illuminate something of the unknown. Here, then, is a further asset to and aspect of, South Africa’s uncommon humanity.

– Douglas Livingstone – renowned South African poet