PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
River Paw Press Announces the Bilingual Edition of Bare Soul in English and Ukrainian
Irvine, CA, USA — February 1, 2026: River Paw Press proudly announces the publication of Bare Soul: Оголена Душа, a bilingual poetry collection by Kalpna Singh-Chitnis (Калпна Сінг-Чітніс), translated into Ukrainian by Ihor Pavlyuk (Ігор Павлюк)—People’s Poet of Ukraine and laureate of the English PEN Award. Presented in English and Ukrainian within a single volume, this edition continues River Paw Press’s commitment to literary dialogue across languages, cultures, and historical moments.
The release follows the international success of Singh-Chitnis’s previous bilingual collection, Love Letters to Ukraine from Uyava: Любовні листи до України від Уяви—recipient of the prestigious Hryhorii Kochur Award, an honor conferred by the State of Ukraine; a 2024 International Book Awards Finalist; and a work archived on the Moon as part of the Polaris Collection of the Lunar Codex. The volume translated by Volodymyr Tymchuk, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, reflects the author’s long-standing literary and humanistic engagement with Ukraine during the war, a period of profound historical urgency.
First published in 2015, Bare Soul emerged as a singular work of spiritual inquiry and lyrical intensity, written in luminous, image-driven language, earning international critical attention for its fearless engagement with self, desire, memory, and transcendence. A decade later, the book finds renewed life in this bilingual edition, offering readers the original English poems alongside their Ukrainian translations, inviting them into a shared contemplative space shaped by language, silence, and self-awareness.
Critics have long recognizedBare Soul as a work of uncommon depth and ambition.
The late American poet and critic Jack Foley wrote:
“Ever since Leaves of Grass first appeared in 1855, we find Walt Whitman simultaneously falsely imitated and truly manifesting in America. Who would have thought that his latest local incarnation would be in the body and soul of an exceptional woman born in Gaya, Bihar, India, where the Buddha experienced enlightenment? Yet here he is. Kalpna Singh-Chitnis’s “Bare Soul” is a rapturous ‘Song of Herself’ erupting in a time/space…”
Writer and Poet Matvii Smirnov observes:
“Magical incantations, mantras, English words that echo the phonemes of ancient tongues… texts as if unearthed from a three-thousand-year-old manuscript—or perhaps written three thousand years after us.”
In World Literature Today, the collection is described as:
“Covering the contradictory pain and immensity of love, the temptation and torture of sin, and the turmoil of the creative process, the poet searches for self-realization by baring her soul in poems of rich imagery and metaphor…”
And Literary Quest observes:
“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. Bare Soul certainly belongs to the third category.”
Scholarly engagement with Bare Soul has further affirmed its literary and philosophical significance.
Dr. Khader Mohammad Abu Jahjouh, Assistant Professor in the Department of Arabic at the Islamic University of Gaza, writes:
“Bare Soul journeys through the emancipation of life’s contradictions, searching for love, beauty, and goodness, while diving into the depths of awareness of the self. Through successive and dynamic imagery, Kalpna Singh-Chitnis grants human qualities to nature and time, opening a meditative space that invites contemplation, surprise, and inner reflection.”
Dr. Meena Malik, Professor of English at NDRI Deemed University in India, notes:
“The poetic exuberance of Kalpna Singh-Chitnis is eloquently expressed in Bare Soul, woven as a medley of love, passion, romance, separation, and mysticism. One marvels at the creative imagination and the ease with which the poet bares her soul. The poetry of Kalpna Singh-Chitnis recalls Rumi’s conception of pure love—eternal, celestial, and transcending physical form, time, and space.”
Bare Soul: Оголена Душа, published by River Paw Press as a bilingual English–Ukrainian edition, can be purchased directly from River Paw Press, where domestic (United States) orders are fulfilled by the publisher. The book is also available internationally through major booksellers and library distributors.
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River Paw Press
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