The events of September 11, 2001 are prominently included in many English-language poems set in New York City. The narrator finds himself "on Sixth, observing devastation, with a handful of rain and a prophecy" in the fictitious prologue poem "About the Author"; he is a citizen of no country other than the republic that gives the book its name, the Republic of English. English is more than just a language here. It is the world's river. Through the prism of his extraordinary lyric mind, Thayil's poems reflect his colourful, distinctive, and far-flung life experiences. The outcome is a fantastical reality that will always trouble me. First, Thayil's English infuses certain emergent local conversation with a transcendent grasp of several literary and colloquial speech registers,