Alexander Pushkin: Selected Poetry

WINNER OF THE READ RUSSIA PRIZE 2020

Alexander Pushkin established what we know as Russian literature. This collection includes his strongly personal lyric verse, which springs spontaneously from his everyday life - his numerous loves, his exile, his hectic life in St Petersburg - while the narrative poems here, from exotic Southern tales to comic parodies and fairy tales of enchanted tsars, display his endless ability to surprise. His landmark work The Bronze Horseman, with its ghostly central figure of Peter the Great, holds the meaning of all Russian history. Antony Wood's translations reveal the variety, inventiveness and perfection of Pushkin's verse.

'Wood's lively translations grasp the irrepressible sense of freedom which is the poet's hallmark ... Pushkin is lucky in Antony Wood. Pleasure is to be found on every page of this book' ― The Times Literary Supplement

This Selected Poetry by Antony Wood supersedes all previous translations ... Wood's 'The Bronze Horseman' gives us Pushkin at his most tragic. 'Count Nulin' shows him at his most light-hearted. 'The Tale of Tsar Saltan' bounces along with delightful vitality. Even with the delicately musical short lyrics - still harder to translate - Wood's success rate is remarkable ... The result is a more rounded picture of Pushkin - in many ways the most universal of poets -- Robert Chandler ― The Financial Times

Everybody knows how difficult Pushkin's poems are to translate. Antony Wood has succeeded, within the limits of the possible -- John Bayley

Re-creating Pushkin requires skills approaching magic. Antony Wood is one of the two or three best translators of Russia's greatest poet in the Anglophone world, because his Pushkin moves: you watch him dance as well as hear him sing -- Caryl Emerson

Antony Wood's translations show an unusual grace and a deep knowledge of Pushkin's poetry -- Elaine Feinstein

Pushkin's poetry is lyrical, beautifully simple, vivid, and endlessly emotive. It can be enjoyed by all readers, regardless of their background in poetry. And there is now one definitive book of Alexander Pushkin's poetry, the one book you need to read in order to fully appreciate Alexander Pushkin's poems: Alexander Pushkin Selected Poetry, translated with complete command and majesty by Antony Wood ― Books and Bao

A volume to keep within easy reach at most times ― East-West Review

Anthony Wood is to be congratulated on this suburb collection, which renders Pushkin in all his matchless grace, wit and musicality ― The Tablet

Alexander Pushkin was born in Moscow in 1799. He was exiled for his liberal views on serfdom and autocracy, but this allowed him the freedom to write some of his greatest works, including the novel in verse Eugene Onegin. He died in 1837 after being fatally wounded in a duel.

Antony Wood is an editor and translator from Russian and German, and also runs the publishing house Angel Books.