Poetry
Остановка в пустыне
Not translated into English
Joseph Brodsky · 1970
Synopsis
A first book put together by the author himself, the collection brings together, according to his biographer Lev Loseff, seventy poems, two long poems and four translations of John Donne, in sections whose order he fixed. It includes “Isaac and Abraham” and “Gorbunov and Gorchakov”. The title poem starts from the demolition of the Greek church in Leningrad, torn down to build a concert hall in its place: there are now so few Greeks in the city, the poem says, that their church could be razed.
Context
The author entrusted the manuscript in 1968, in Leningrad, to the American professor and translator George Kline, and the book appeared in New York in 1970 from the Chekhov publishing house. Brodsky had taught himself English in order to translate poets such as John Donne, four of whose pieces appear in the volume. In French, his poems form a section of the Gallimard volume published in 1987, translated by about ten translators and prefaced by Michel Aucouturier.
Who it is for
A collection of poems to be read in the Gallimard volume, which includes it as a section; the long poems take time.
Prizes and reception
Smuggled out of the Soviet Union, the manuscript gave the poet, still in Leningrad, a book ordered according to his wishes.
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