Bride of Ice by Marina Tsvetaeva
Intensely emotional and honest, this collection of searing poems about love, loss, jealousy, and fear, explores the literary and social landscape of post revolutionary Russia. Sharply addressing the conflicts between the life of a poet and that of a mother and wife, this enlarged volume, masterfully translated, includes five major poem sequences, one of which was written in 1915 for the poet's lover Sofia Parnok and another in response to poet Rainer Maria Rilke's death. Invoking Stalinist Russia as an underlying theme, thiscompilationalso covers politics and history.
'Like numerous English readers, I owe my discovery of Tsvetaeva to the multi-talented poet and writer, Elaine Feinstein.. Feinstein's translations prove that a poem can be re-born in its adoptive language'. - Carol Rumens
Marina Tsvetaeva (also Tsvetayeva and Cvetaeva) was born in Moscow in 1892. Her father was a professor and founder of the Museum of Fine Arts, and her mother, who died of tuberculosis when Marina was 14, was a concert pianist. At the age of 18 she published her first collection of poems, Evening Album. Tsvetayeva's life coincided with turbulent years in Russian history. She married Sergei Efron in 1912; they had two daughters and later one son. Efron joined the White Army, and Tsvetayeva was separated from him during the Civil War. She had a brief love affair with Osip Mandelstam, and a longer relationship with Sofia Parnok. During the Moscow famine, Tsvetayeva was forced to place her daughters in a state orphanage, where the younger, Irina, died of hunger in 1919. In 1922 she emigrated with her family to Berlin, then to Prague, settling in Paris in 1925. In Paris, the family lived in poverty. Sergei Efron worked for the Soviet secret police, and Tsvetayeva was shunned by the Russian expatriate community of Paris. Through the years of privation and exile, poetry and contact with poets sustained Tsvetayeva. She corresponded with Rainer Maria Rilke and Boris Pasternak, and she dedicated work to Anna Akhmatova. In 1939 Tsvetayeva returned to the Soviet Union. Efron was executed, and her surviving daughter was sent to a labour camp. When the German army invaded the USSR, Tsvetayeva was evacuated to Yelabuga with her son. She hanged herself there on 31 August 1941. Bloodaxe publishes two editions of her work: David McDuff's translation, Selected Poems, first published in 1987 (when Tsvetayeva was the preferred transliteration), and Angela Livingstone's translation of her essays, Art in the Light of Conscience, first published in 1982 and republished by Bloodaxe in 2010 (as Tsvetaeva).
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781847770608 |
| ISBN 10 | 1847770606 |
| Title | Bride of Ice |
| Author | Marina Tsvetaeva |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Carcanet Press Ltd |
| Year published | 2009-06-28 |
| Number of pages | 180 |
| Prizes | Winner of Poetry Book Society (PBS): Recommended Translation - Summer 2009 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |