The Rivered Earth contains four effervescent libretti written by Vikram Seth - the international bestselling author of A Suitable Boy - to be set to music by Alec Roth - together with an account of the pleasures and pains of working with a composer.Entitled 'Songs in Time of War', 'Shared Ground', 'The Traveller' and 'Seven Elements', they take us all over the world - from Chinese and Indian poetry to the beauty and quietness of the Salisbury house where the poet George Herbert lived and died.Spanning centuries of creativity and humanity, these poems pulse with life, energy and inspired brilliance.They are accompanied by four pieces of calligraphy by Vikram Seth, who also captured the ethereally beautiful photograph of his Salisbury garden for the book cover.Signum Classics has released two CDs of the music written to accompany The Rivered Earth, entitled Shared Ground and Songs in Time of War. Both recordings feature the violinist Philippe Honore and Birmingham's Ex Cathedra choir.Praise for Vikram Seth'The best writer of his generation' The Times'Such writing reminds us that there are secrets beyond technique, beyond style, which have to do with a quality of soul on the part of the writer, a giving of oneself' Guardian'A phenomenon, a prodigy, a marvel . . . It is hard to believe that Seth is only one man' Evening StandardEqually gifted as a poet, essayist, memoirist, travel writer and novelist, Vikram Seth is perhaps best known for his phenomenal A Suitable Boy and is currently working on a sequel to be published in 2013, A Suitable Girl. He has published three other novels - An Equal Music, The Golden Gate and Two Lives. He has released several poetry collections - Mappings, The Humble Administrator's Garden, All You Who Sleep Tonight, Beastly Tales, Three Chinese Poets and The Frog and the Nightingale. Seth is the winner of the 1994 Commonwealth Writers Prize for A Suitable Boy, the 1985 Asia Commonwealth Poetry Prize and in 2007 was awarded the Padma Shri in Literature and Education.