Yves Bonnefoy, born in Tours in 1923, is the most important and influential French poet since Francis Ponge and René Char. His influence extends beyond the world of poetry thanks to his essays on literature and art, his translations of Shakespeare's complete tragedies and his teaching at the Collège de France.
Yesterday's Wilderness Kingdom is a complete translation of his second collection, Hier régnant désert (1958).
Anthony Rudolf, born in 1942, has been translating Bonnefoy's poetry and prose since 1963. His translations include the poet's first published text, Traité du pianiste (1946), which appeared in 1993. New and Selected Poems of Yves Bonnefoy, edited by John Naughton and Anthony Rudolf, was published by Carcanet in 1996.
"... an excellent translator. Rudolf's versions [of Bonnefoy] are generally faultless, faithful, and rhythmically satisfying."
Stephen Romer, Times Literary Supplement
"His translations of French poems are first-rate, and could illuminate contemporary English poetic practice."
Robert Nye, The Times
"I sensed all the time Rudolf's fine exact craftsmanship: no word or syllable wasted, so that each image is stark and true."
George Mackay Brown on The Same River Twice, The Scotsman
"Every poem like a new geometry - of surprises. A strange voice of cat's cradles in a Kafkaesque light - very strange and unpredictable."
Ted Hughes on After the Dream
Yesterday's Wilderness Kingdom is a complete translation of his second collection, Hier régnant désert (1958).
Anthony Rudolf, born in 1942, has been translating Bonnefoy's poetry and prose since 1963. His translations include the poet's first published text, Traité du pianiste (1946), which appeared in 1993. New and Selected Poems of Yves Bonnefoy, edited by John Naughton and Anthony Rudolf, was published by Carcanet in 1996.
"... an excellent translator. Rudolf's versions [of Bonnefoy] are generally faultless, faithful, and rhythmically satisfying."
Stephen Romer, Times Literary Supplement
"His translations of French poems are first-rate, and could illuminate contemporary English poetic practice."
Robert Nye, The Times
"I sensed all the time Rudolf's fine exact craftsmanship: no word or syllable wasted, so that each image is stark and true."
George Mackay Brown on The Same River Twice, The Scotsman
"Every poem like a new geometry - of surprises. A strange voice of cat's cradles in a Kafkaesque light - very strange and unpredictable."
Ted Hughes on After the Dream