Description
Sylva Fischerova is one of the most formidable Czech poets of her generation. A distinguished classicist who teaches at Charles University in Prague, she writes poetry with a vivid imagination as well as historical reach, and was first published in English as a young poet by Bloodaxe in 1990. Her poetry moves in and out of historical events, with an understanding and loving eye on our frailties as well as our corruptive acts, against the backdrop of her commanding sense of space and time, and 'makes beauty from monsters'. Mixing semantic and sonorous sense, her poems come to life through metamorphosed moments, showing that nothing can be taken literally in a world 'endowed with sense and meaning'.
About the Author
Sylva Fischerova was born in 1963 in Prague. She grew up in the Moravian town of Olomouc as a daughter of non-Marxist philosopher whose works were banished under communist rule. She returned to Prague to study philosophy and physics, and later Greek and Latin, at Charles University where she now teaches ancient Greek literature and philosophy. She has published six volumes of poems in Czech, and her poetry has been translated and published in numerous languages. An earlier selection of her poems, The Tremor of Racehorses, translated by Ian and Jarmila Milner, was published by Bloodaxe in 1990. She recently began to write prose, and a book of her stories Miracle, as well as a book for children, appeared in 2005. The Swing in the Middle of Chaos: Selected Poems, co-translated with Stuart Friebert, was published by Bloodaxe in 2010.
Reviews
'The best translations are those that don't appear to be translations - these poems are stunning as poems - rippling with metaphor, spontaneous, terse but nuanced. Driven by a restless moral intelligence which never loses urgency, Fischerova's poems mix hope with irony, showing why the world makes us ache' - Dennis Schmitz
Book Information
ISBN 9781852248598
Author Sylva Fischerova
Format Paperback
Page Count 160
Imprint Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Publisher Bloodaxe Books Ltd
About the Author
Sylva Fischerova was born in 1963 in Prague. She grew up in the Moravian town of Olomouc as a daughter of non-Marxist philosopher whose works were banished under communist rule. She returned to Prague to study philosophy and physics, and later Greek and Latin, at Charles University where she now teaches ancient Greek literature and philosophy. She has published six volumes of poems in Czech, and her poetry has been translated and published in numerous languages. An earlier selection of her poems, The Tremor of Racehorses, translated by Ian and Jarmila Milner, was published by Bloodaxe in 1990. She recently began to write prose, and a book of her stories Miracle, as well as a book for children, appeared in 2005. The Swing in the Middle of Chaos: Selected Poems, co-translated with Stuart Friebert, was published by Bloodaxe in 2010.
Reviews
'The best translations are those that don't appear to be translations - these poems are stunning as poems - rippling with metaphor, spontaneous, terse but nuanced. Driven by a restless moral intelligence which never loses urgency, Fischerova's poems mix hope with irony, showing why the world makes us ache' - Dennis Schmitz
Book Information
ISBN 9781852248598
Author Sylva Fischerova
Format Paperback
Page Count 160
Imprint Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Publisher Bloodaxe Books Ltd
