The Half-Finished Heaven: The Best Poems of Tomas Transtromer

By Tomas Tranströmer

Book Overview

From the Winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature An expanded edition by the Nobel laureate Tomas Transtr?mer, translated by the award-winning poet Robert BlyEvery person is a half-open... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1555973515
• ISBN13: 9781555973513
• Release Date: October 2001
• Publisher: Graywolf Press
• Length: 97 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Great intro to major poet

I knew little of Transtromer's work and nothing about him. Bly's translations are the best way to enter Mr. T's world, I think. I now have other translations. In some cases, 2 others of a poem for comparison. I do not know Swedish at all, although I would like to look at it sometime--but none of the books I have is bilingual. I don't miss it here. I can tell that Bly translates as he has elsewhere: he reads and receives the original poem and then writes a poem-to-poem translation, rather than word-for-word. I've found other parts that I prefer or find a bit more interesting in other translations, but for overall poem-ness and poetic satisfaction, I don't think Bly's can be beat. You know you're reading poetry, not simply translation. For those who'd like to compare and don't mind some overlap, I'd recommend Robin Fulton's collected poems The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems and Robert Hass's selected poems Tomas Transtromer: Selected Poems, 1954-1986. In some cases, you'll get 3 translations for triangulation. For me, I'm seeking out more of Bly's translations, many of which are out of print.