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The Rivered Earth is a set of four libretti written by Vikram Seth, which encompass themes of war and even the elements, and are a mix of original work and translations. Summary Of The Book The Rivered Earth is a sweeping work, containing four libretti, seemingly unlinked, but united by the common arch of the earth and the elements. Vikram Seth has used wildly varying subjects for this work. The four libretti contained within are Songs in Times of War, Shared Ground, The Traveller, and finally, Seven Elements. Each text also begins with calligraphy work by the author. These are done in four languages, Chinese, Arabic, Hindi and English. When the author was asked to write these four works to be set to music by composer Alec Roth, he had to decide the subjects for each. Vikram Seth had studied in China for two years, and he had translated the works of three Chinese poets during that time. He chose the translations he had made of one of these poets, Du Fu. This poet lived in the eighth century. His poetry mostly describes the terrible period of a rebellion which resulted in famine and other devastation. He used these as the base for the first libretto, Songs in Times of War. For the second libretto, he moved to Europe. In Shared Ground, Seth bases his libretto on the works of the poet George Herbert. Vikram Seth shares another connection with Herbert. He lives in the house where the poet spent the last days of his life. For the third libretto, Vikram gets back to India. He has used a variety of subjects to deal with here, such as the ode to creation in the Rig Veda, selections from the Bhagavad Gita, and the four stages of human life as described in the Vedas. These form the base for The Traveler. The final libretto provides a linking thread for the other three. It deals with time. Seth decided to compose his poems on the fundamental elements of nature. In the western culture, there are four elements, earth, air, water and fire. In Indian tradition, besides these four, there is one other element, space. In Chinese culture, wood and metal are part of the basic elements. Including all these, Vikram Seth came up with seven elements for his final libretto in The Rivered Earth, The Seven Elements. This section contains seven poems, one for each element. About Vikram Seth Vikram Seth is an Indian writer. Other books by Seth are The Golden Gate, An Equal Music, The Humble Administrator's Garden, and Beastly Tales. Vikram Seth was born in 1952 to a Punjabi family in Calcutta. He studied at Oxford, majoring in Philosophy, Economics and Politics. He then studied at Stanford University in California, earning a graduate degree in Economics. He also went on to study Creative Writing at this university, and later spent some time in China studying classical Chinese poetry at Nanjing University. Seth has received numerous awards including the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, Crossword Book Award and the WH Smith Literary Award and also been awarded the Padma Shri.