His fresh and beautiful prose translations will re-open many half-forgotten doors, and stimulate new enthusiasms.

    Each of the forty-five sections plays against the others, and although wide-ranging and with many moods and changes of tone, Dark Harbor is all of a piece.

    Typical targets of Zoshchenko's satire are the Soviet bureaucracy, crowded conditions in communal apartments, marital infidelities and the rapid turnover in marriage partners, and "the petty-bourgeois mode of life, with its adulterous episodes, lying, and similar nonsense." His devices are farcical complications, satiric understatement, humorous anachronisms, and an ironic contrast between high-flown sentiments and the down-to-earth reality of mercenary instincts.Zoshchenko's sharp and original satire offers a marvelous window on Russian life in the 20s and 30s.

    Yet the magnificence of his achievements as an artist often overshadow his devotion to poetry. Michelangelo used poetry to express what was too personal to display in sculpture or painting. John Frederick Nims has brought the entire body of Michelangelo's verse, from the artist's ardent twenties to his anguished and turbulent eighties, to life in English in this unprecedented collection. The result is a tantalizing glimpse into a most fascinating mind."Wonderful. . . . Nims gives us Michelangelo whole: the polymorphous love sonneteer, the political allegorist, and the solitary singer of madrigals."—Kirkus Reviews"A splendid, fresh and eloquent translation. . . . Nims, an eminent poet and among the best translators of our time, conveys the full meaning and message of Michelangelo's love sonnets and religious poems in fluently rhymed, metrical forms."—St. Louis Post-Dispatch"The best so far. . . . Nims is best at capturing the sound and sense of Michelangelo's poetic vocabulary."—Choice"Surely the most compelling translations of Michelangelo currently available in English."—Ronald L. Martinez, Washington Times

    American LiteratureContains:The doctor's son -- It must have been spring -- Over the river and through the wood -- Price's always open -- Are we leaving tomorrow? -- Pal Joey -- The gentleman in the tan suit -- Good-bye, Herman -- Olive -- Do you like it here? -- Now we know -- Free -- Too young -- Bread alone -- Graven image -- Common sense should tell you -- Drawing room B -- The pretty daughters - The moccasins -- Imagine kissing Pete -- The girl from California -- In the silence -- Exactly eight thousand dollars exactly -- Winter dance -- The flatted saxophone -- The friends of Miss Julia -- How can I tell you? -- Ninety minutes away -- Our friend the sea -- Can I stay here? -- The hardware man -- The pig -- Zero -- Fatimas and kisses -- Natica Jackson -- We'll have fun.

    Staring with the Classical Period (645-1604 A.D.), characterized by the wanka and tanka styles,followed by haiku poets of the Tokugawa period (to 1867), the subsequent modern tanka and haiku poets,and including the contemporary school of free verse—Women Poets of Japan records twelve hundred years of poetic accomplishment. Included are biographical notes on the individual poets, an essay on Japanese women and literature, and a table of historical periods.

    And few episodes in postwar literature have the legendary stature of Hughes's romance with, and marriage to, the great American poet Sylvia Plath.The poems in Birthday Letters are addressed (with just two exceptions) to Plath, and were written over a period of more than twenty-five years, the first a few years after her suicide in 1963. Some are love letters, others haunted recollections and ruminations. In them, Hughes recalls his and Plath's time together, drawing on the powerful imagery of his work--animal, vegetable, mythological--as well as on Plath's famous verse.Countless books have discussed the subject of this intense relationship from a necessary distance, but this volume--at last--offers us Hughes's own account. Moreover, it's a truly remarkable collection of poems in its own right.

    Her stories portray a young Irish girl's view of obsessive love and its often wrenching pain, while tales of contemporary life show women who open themselves to sexuality, to disappointment, to madness. Throughout, there is always O'Brien's voice—wondrous, despairing, moving—examining passionate subjects that lay bare the desire and needs that can be hidden in a woman's heart.

    Set against the looming horrors of the battlefield - the weary, demoralized men marching in the rain during the German attack on Caporetto; the profound struggle between loyalty and desertion—this gripping, semiautobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war and the pain of lovers caught in its inexorable sweep. Ernest Hemingway famously said that he rewrote his ending to A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times to get the words right.

    The final days of the Fascist Republic. World War II is nearing it's frantic conclusion. The regime's days are numbered, it's disgraced leaders know it, and their quibbling over pieces of the post-war pie is getting more desperate by the minute. Commissario De Luca has been handed a murder investigation that will draw him into the private lives of the rich, priviledged, and powerful. With Mussolini's house of cards ready to collapse, he faces a world mired in sadistic sex, dirty money, drugs, and murder.Carte Blanche, the first installment in Carlo Lucarelli's De Luca Trilogy, is more than a first-rate crime story. It is also an investigation into the workings of justice in a state that is crumbling under the weight of profound historic change. The De Luca Trilogy is set during one of modern history's seminal moments and describes a nation's ardent search to rediscover its moral bearings after being torn in two by civil strife and political corruption. Threatened by the machinations of a decaying political class, De Luca, himself reminiscent of the disenchanted Dashiell Hammett PI, is a simple man doing a tough job as best he can. Even when he has wrapped up his investigation, Commissario De Luca will still have to face one final, fateful decision.

    Its success had gone far beyond Italy, as the book has been translated into Spanish, French, Japanese and three other languages. This epic historical novel about World War II and after, written from the author's own personal experiences as an Italian Freedom Fighter, is a profoundly moving account of the war, those who fought in it on both sides, and the effects the war had on families in the author's hometown in Italy. On a wider scale, it is a faithful witness to the actual events of the war - including the role of historical personages who appear, the Russian campaign, the Nazi barbarism, the Communist gulag, the North Italian resistance, and political life in the two decades following the war. This world, filled with powerful personalities, drama and clashing armies, bathes in the light of the truth. What makes this truly historical novel, with its epic scope, a masterpiece is the underlying spiritual dimensions of the protagonist, his family and friends, which illuminates the ongoing tragedy of the war and its aftermath. In the end, it is a story of faith and hope in a world reduced to barbarism and cruelty. Born in 1921 in Lombardy, Eugenio Corti joined the Italian Freedom Fighters. From his experiences of the tragic retreat from Russia, Corti wrote a fascinating chronicle, Most Did Not Return, and a book about the Italian Freedom Fighters, The Last Soldiers of the King.

    By the time Owen was killed at the age of 25 at the Battle of Sambre, he had written what are considered to be the most important British poems of WWI. This definitive edition is based on manuscripts of Owen's papers in the British Museum and other archives.

    The stories are told in a country villa outside the city of Florence by ten young noble men and women who are seeking to escape the ravages of the plague. Boccaccio's skill as a dramatist is masterfully displayed in these vivid portraits of people from all stations in life, with plots that revel in a bewildering variety of human reactions.Translated with an Introduction and Notes by G. H. McWilliam

    Wyatt had himself survived two imprisonments in the Tower as well as a love affair with Anne Boleyn, and his poetry - that of an extraordinarily sophisticated, passionate and vulnerable man - reflects these experiences, making disguised reference to current political events. Above all, though, Wyatt is known for his love poetry, which often dramatizes incidents and remembered conversations with his beloved, with an ear acutely sensitive to patterns of rhythm and colloquial speech. Conveying the actuality of betrayal or absence, and the intense pressure of his longing for a love that could be trusted, these are some of the most haunting poems in the English language.

    It has since been performed all over the world and is widely recognised as a classic of modern drama. A sharp and hilarious satire on political corruption, it concerns the case of an anarchist railway worker who, in 1969, 'fell' to his death from a police headquarters window.This version of the play was premiered in London in 2003.Commentary and notes by Joseph Farrell.Content: Dario Fo Plot Commentary Further reading Accidental death of an anarchist NotesQuestions for further study.