![the [blank] garden](https://theblankgarden.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/cropped-lucas-cranach-the-younger-6.png)
Dear Irina, When Isolde (2019, tr. Bryan Karetnyk and Irina Steinberg. Original: Изольда, 1929) opens, it’s summer, sometime in the wild 1920’s, and we are in Biarritz.…… Read more “Her heart is this red apple”
Tag: Exile
In the transparent silence of night,
Six poems by Irina Odoevtseva: three from the collection A Russian cultural revival: a critical anthology of émigré literature before 1939, edited and translated by Temira Pachmuss…… Read more “In the transparent silence of night,”
Harp of wild and dream-like strain,
Dear Emily, Gondal – an imaginary island in the North Pacific, created by you and Anne and peopled with flawed, implacable characters often driven into epic battles…… Read more “Harp of wild and dream-like strain,”
Memories lie slumbering within us
Dear Winfried, The Rings of Saturn (tr. Michael Hulse, 1998. Original: Die Ringe des Saturn: Eine englische Wallfahrt, 1995) is beautiful, and melancholy, and strange. It is this…… Read more “Memories lie slumbering within us”
Home is a place in the mind
Dear Maeve, If your novella The Visitor (2000, originally written in the 1940’s) had a face, it would be one of a trapped animal, diverted from its…… Read more “Home is a place in the mind”
Everyone was fleeing and everything was temporary
Dear Anna, Do you know this feeling we have when something terrible happens in a dream and we must scream or run, but we find ourselves suddenly…… Read more “Everyone was fleeing and everything was temporary”
They didn’t dare before; now they do, that’s all
Dear Anna, I was halfway through Manja (tr. Kate Phillips, 2003. Manja: Ein Roman um 5 Kinder, 1938) this past week, when your book acquired a new…… Read more “They didn’t dare before; now they do, that’s all”
