Amidst rain and fire and ruin, in a land of doomed addresses , a poet evokes the tragedy of his birthplace. The Country Without a Post Office is a haunted and haunting volume that established Agha Shahid Ali as a seminal voice writing in English. In it are stunning poems of extraordinary formal precision and virtuosity, intensely musical, steeped in history, myth and politics, all merging into Agha Shahid Ali s finest mode, that of longing.