Synopses & Reviews
This is the best translated and largest edition of poetry by the Czechs' only Nobel Prizewinning poet, Jaroslav Seifert (he won the prize in 1984 and died in 1986). The poetry is surprising in its simplicity, sensual, thoughtful, moving, comic in turns. Author Milan Kundera has called this collection the tangible expression of the nations genius.”
Review
“Seifert's three great subjects are the beauties of women, art, and his nation. He characteristically celebrates all three within a single poem, although his perpetually thrilled adoration of women registers most powerfully and most winsomely. Perhaps Keats, had he lived to old age, would have be come such a poet.” —Booklist
Review
“These are simply marvelous poems ... What I find truly valuable about Osers' translations ... is the way he renders the surprising variety of Seifert's images, and the way that he catches the breathtaking suddenness of the poet's coiled metaphors.” —New York Press