HEARING EYE Publications

Richard McKane

On the brink of the 200th Anniversary of Pushkin, Richard McKane opens his generous selection of Russian translations with a dozen lyrics of Pushkin. There follow Gumilyov, Akhmatova's poems to Isaiah Berlin, and, from this translator and poet - the book starts with 25 of his own poems to poets - Mandelstam, Pasternak, Aranzon, Sedakova and many other new voices. There is also a rich selection of the Turkish poets, including Hikmet and Rifat, and a few surprises from the Uzbek, Kazakh, Azeri, Danish and Greek.

Richard McKane was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1947. A frequent traveller to Turkey in the 60s and 70s, he learned the language fluently and befriended many poets and writers. In 1978, he was the first non-US citizen to be awarded the Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University as a writer.

He has translated over 20 books from both Russian and Turkish. The first collection of his own poetry Amphora for Metaphors was published in New York and London in 1993 and his Turkey Poems was published bilingually in Istanbul. Whilst continuing to translate, he also works as an interpreter at the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, in London.

To order this book by post, please send your name address and postcode, including payment, to: Hearing Eye, Box 1, 99 Torriano Avenue, London, England NW5 2RX. Price is inclusive of postage and packing when ordered direct from Hearing Eye. 224pp A5 format. £10.99 (plus p&p). ISBN 1 870841 57 3

 

'Richard McKane's arrival has been long delayed, but now he steps into the rather crowded ranks of the most brilliant poets of the last twenty years or more. His poems are faultlessly alive, so fully worked out.'

Peter Levi in the Introduction to 'Amphora for Metaphors'

'Continue, continue, continue: your work adds to the sum of human values'

from a letter to the author from Isaiah Berlin

 

Reviews by Geoffrey Godbert & Rachel Campbell Johnston

 

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