Jules Supervielle (1884-1960) was born to French parents in Montevideo, orphaned within a year of his birth, and grew up in Uruguay and France. He spent the Second World War exiled in Uruguay, afflicted by ill health and financial ruin. His poems are dreamlike, often gently fantastical, imbued with an appealing surface clarity. His work stands apart from much 20th-century French poetry, and he has been characterised as a writer of Basque descent who wrote in French but in the Spanish tradition, with a strong affinity for the open spaces of his South American childhood and nostalgia for a cosmic brotherhood of men. In many respects he seems our contemporary, a writer of highly personal poems as well as poems concerned with war and the environment. Moniza Alvi writes: 'I have been making versions of Supervielle's poems for several years, strongly drawn to his style of writing, while also finding coincidental parallels with my own life, such as his birth "elsewhere" on another continent. My aim has been to retain the spirit of the French poems, and as many of their implications as I can, while making a poem that has a life in English. I thought he was an enchanting, inspiring poet who deserved to be so much better known in this country.'

About the Author
Jules Supervielle was born in Montevideo, to French Basque parents, and orphaned less than a year later during a family visit to France. Raised first by his grandmother in France, he was taken back to Uruguay by his uncle and aunt, moving with them to Paris in 1894, where he had most of his education. He married in 1907 in Montevideo, and had six children with his wife Pilar. Conscripted to serve in the First World War, he spent the Second World War exiled in Uruguay, afflicted by ill health and financial ruin brought about by the demise of the family bank. Between 1922 and the outbreak of war he published two books of poetry, Debarcaderes and Gravitations, a novel and a collection of short stories. His postwar output included the poetry collections Naissances and Le Corps tragique as well as plays and mythological tales. He met Rilke in 1925, and his close friends in the literary world included Henri Michaux and Jean Paulhan. Bloodaxe published Moniza Alvi's bilingual edition of his poems, Homesick for the Earth: Selected Poems, in 2011.

Reviews
In her striking versions of poems by the French poet Jules Supervielle, written against the backdrop of wartime France, Moniza Alvi has found a soul-mate, a poet companion. -- Penelope Shuttle * Poetry London *



Book Information
ISBN 9781852249205
Author Jules Supervielle
Format Paperback
Page Count 120
Imprint Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Publisher Bloodaxe Books Ltd