Skinny Dipping in Tiger Country

Pre-order now: for delivery April 2026 

Across the nine interlinked sections of her debut collection, Maithreyi Hughes explores what it means to be vulnerable and curious in the wilderness of civilisation. Here, politics becomes an instinctive expression of morality; animals are fellow travellers; travel a form of detachment rather than escape. Myth and irony share a lens; belonging folds into longing.

In 'Borrowed Cardigan', Hughes reflects on her time as a literary fellow on the shores of Cardigan Bay, where her hosts lent her a cardigan to fend off a chill the poet's Indian wardrobe hadn’t anticipated – an emblem of the book’s blend of humour and tenderness. Indeed, wit flickers beneath the surface throughout, while rhymes appear as child-like whims amidst serious preoccupations; the kind of laughter that stops mid-chuckle to gaze into the distance.

This is a fierce, daring introduction to an incisive and eloquent poetic voice, claiming the English language as both microscope and mirror. Ultimately though, the poems offer no verdicts; their resolutions are just temporary breathers on the stairway of meaning-making, before the climb begins again.