'It is simultaneously a cry of distress for the modern world and a cool-headed contemplation of what it is in us that leads us to the dark places... it is an immensely rich poetic world which, when you enter, you find is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. You, reader, must discover; you must curate.' - Chris Edgoose, Wood Bee Poet

The Strongbox opens with the abduction of a woman to a foreign land and ends with the Rape of Europa. Drawing in elements of Greek mythology, epic literature and recent history, this protean work gives shape to a cast of characters both ancient and modern, as they flit in and out of tales, their voices overlapping and interacting. An unnamed girl is persuaded to leave behind her country and her childhood and travel to a warzone. Helen of Sparta, already trapped behind the walls of Ilium, is plagued by dreams about the coming conflict. Gods continue their manipulations, while mortals persist in defying the will of their gods. Through a series of interconnected scenes and dialogues this singular work traces the role of myth in shaping our accounts of both history and contemporary events.
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The Strongbox, a modernist poem, is an extended work that develops elements of Greek mythology, epic literature and the cultures of wars, both ancient and painfully recent.

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781800174085
Publisert
2024-05-30
Utgiver
Vendor
Carcanet Press Ltd
Høyde
216 mm
Bredde
135 mm
Aldersnivå
G, 01
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
88

Forfatter

Biographical note

Sasha Dugdale has published six collections with Carcanet. The Strongbox is her most recent book (May, 2024). Her fifth collection Deformations was shortlisted for the 2020 T. S. Eliot Prize and Derek Walcott Prize. Joy (2017) was a Poetry Book Society Choice and the title poem was awarded the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem 2016. Her recent translations for theatre include Bad Roads and The Grainstore by Ukrainian playwright Natalya Vorozhbit, for production by the Royal Court Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company. She has published numerous translations of Russian-language women's writing. The most recent of these, Maria Stepanova's novel In Memory of Memory (Fitzcarraldo, 2021), was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, the Weidenfeld Prize, Warwick Prize for Women in Translation and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Dugdale won the MLA Lois Roth Award for this translation. A new collection by Maria Stepanova Holy Winter is forthcoming from Bloodaxe (UK) and New Directions (US) in 2023. She is former editor of Modern Poetry in Translation, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.