Tristia (1922)

Osip Mandelstam's second collection of poems, Tristia, astonished Russian readers in 1922 with its daring verse forms and meditations on revolution, exile, death and rebirth. Thomas de Waal's new translation gives English-language reader the chance to experience the entire collection for the first time.

'Thomas de Waal offers the English-reading public a precious jewel box: the gift of an elegant, supple translation of Osip Mandelstam's Tristia. The collection is vividly introduced, and accompanied by an incredibly helpful - and never burdensome - set of comments to delight both those readers new to Mandelstam and those who, like myself, have long loved his verse. It is difficult to believe that we had to wait over a hundred years for the first complete English translation of a masterpiece of twentieth century poetry which rivals that other great product of 1922, T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland."
- Vesna Goldsworthy