Through much of the twentieth century, Anna Akhmatova's poetry gave voice to the deepest yearnings and struggles of the Russian people. From the most intimate longings of young lovers, to the artistic passions of the St. Petersburg poets and bohemians, to the collective suffering of a nation through two World Wars, the Russian Revolution and, later, the Stalinist terror, Akhmatova spoke to, and for, the soul of her people.
Born in 1889, she survived these upheavals, refusing to abandon either Russia or her craft despite vicious attacks on her name and censorship of her work. When committing poems to paper threatened to cause her arrest, a few close friends faithfully memorized her lines. By the time she died in 1966, Anna Akhmatova was recognized as one of the world's great poets.
Initially published in 1990, when the New York Times Book Review named it one of fourteen "Best Books of the Year," Judith Hemschemeyer's translation of The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatovais the definitive edition, and has sold over 13,000 copies, making it one of the most successful poetry titles of recent years.
This reissued and revised printing features a new biographical essay as well as expanded notes to the poems, both by Roberta Reeder, project editor and author of Anna Akhmatova: Poet and Prophet(St. Martin's Press, 1994). Encyclopedic in scope, with more than 800 poems, 100 photographs, a historical chronology, index of first lines, and bibliography. The Complete Poems will be the definitive English language collection of Akhmatova for many years to come.
'In this admirably restrained and accurate translation... the sense and the message strike with all the weight of the original.' - NY Times Book Review
'We needn't worry again about how to read Akhmatova in translation. Reading this enormous, impeccable book, we watch her work achieve the supreme goal of lyric poetry: to transfigure loss without belittling it, commemorate love without cooling it, and embody the truth of disparate lives in a single self.' - The Observer
'This is one of the most important publications of the year, if not the decade.' - Adam Thorpe, Literary Review
'A magnificent achievement whose like as an event in poetic scholarship is not likely to be equalled in our day.' - Harrison E. Salisbury
