{"title":"Books by Wislawa Szymborska","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780544705159","title":"Map","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBoth plain-spoken and luminous . . . Szymborskas is the best of the Western mindfree, restless, questioning.  \u003cem\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e A \u003cem\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/em\u003eEditors Choice\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne of Europes greatest poets is also its wisest, wittiest, and most accessible. Nobel Prize winner Wislawa Szymborska draws us in with her unexpected, unassuming humor. If you want the world in a nutshell, a Polish critic remarked, try Szymborska. But the world held in these lapidary poems is larger than the one we thought we knew.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEdited by her longtime, award-winning translator, Clare Cavanagh, \u003cem\u003eMap\u003c\/em\u003e traces Szymborskas work until her death in 2012. Of the approximately two hundred fiftypoems included here, nearly forty arenewly translated; thirteen represent the entirety of the poets last Polish collection, \u003cem\u003eEnough,\u003c\/em\u003e never before published in English. \u003cem\u003eMap \u003c\/em\u003eoffers Szymborskas devoted readers a welcome return to her ironic elegance (\u003cem\u003eTheNew Yorker\u003c\/em\u003e).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eVast, intimate, and charged with the warmth of a life fully imagined to the end. Theres no better place for those unfamiliar with her work to begin.  \u003cem\u003eVogue\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHer poems offer a restorative wit as playful as it is steely and as humble as it is wise . . . Her wry acceptance of lifes folly remains her strongest weapon against tyranny and bad taste.  \u003cem\u003eLos Angeles Times Book Review\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56291122938229,"sku":"9780544705159","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780544705159_b675108b-90a9-4aab-ab10-eb1db382c1a4.jpg?v=1786013670"},{"product_id":"9780571196685","title":"Poems, New and Collected","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen Wislawa Szymborksa's \u003cb\u003eView with a Grain of Sand\u003c\/b\u003e, also translated by Stanislaw Baraczak and Clare Cavanagh, was published shortly after its author's award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996, the Polish poet, hitherto all but unknown outside her own country, became an international name. More than 10,000 copies of the book have been sold in Britain alone. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet it was not so much the fame of the prize, as the directness, vigour, wit and honesty with which Szymborska herself writes - qualities deftly captured by her translators - that brought this about. Transcending national and generational boundaries with her rare combination of moral wisdom and down-to-earth manner of speaking to us, she is unquestionably one of the great poetic spirits of the age. \u003cb\u003ePoems New and Collected\u003c\/b\u003e adds sixty-four new translations to the text of \u003cb\u003eView with a Grain of Sand\u003c\/b\u003e and includes, as preface, its author's Nobel Prize acceptance speech.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56291493020021,"sku":"9780571196685","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780571196685_c72bef27-431e-4e33-a9ad-cdf61be44027.jpg?v=1786013472"},{"product_id":"9780571191635","title":"View with a Grain of Sand","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA selection of poems by the Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet, translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA member of the gifted and heroic generation of poets which includes Czeslaw Milosz, Tadeusz Rózwicz and Zbigniew Herbert, and which, during the years of Soviet oppression, spoke so eloquently for the true feelings of the Polish people, she nonetheless has her own distinctive voice and authority. \u003ci\u003eView with a Grain of Sand \u003c\/i\u003eis the first selection in English to display not only the broad range but also the essence of her output. Always concerned with the unglamorized actualities of the human condition, often sardonic and very funny, endowed with the most fertile and surprising imagination, Szymborska can now be seen as one of the supremely trustworthy witnesses of our time.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56292368679285,"sku":"9780571191635","price":13.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780571191635_2ff5bca3-0be7-4064-9fce-4461c982cb7a.jpg?v=1786013446"},{"product_id":"9780691013800","title":"Sounds, Feelings, Thoughts","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom Nobel Prize–winning poet Wisława Szymborska, a dazzling bilingual collection of verse that reveals her signature themes and techniques\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eSounds, Feelings, and Thoughts \u003c\/i\u003eis a superb introduction to the work of Nobel Prize–winning poet Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012), who is widely regarded as one of the greatest poets since World War II. Carefully selected and skillfully translated by Magnus Krynski and Robert Maguire, this book presents a broad and representative selection of Szymborska’s poetry and features the original Polish poems on pages facing the English translations. The book demonstrates the hallmarks of Szymborska’s verse—high seriousness, delightful inventiveness, a prodigal imagination, and enormous technical skill. Writing of the diversity, plenitude, and richness of the world, she takes delight in observing and naming its phenomena, looking on with wonder, astonishment, and amusement.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56294446301557,"sku":"9780691013800","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780691013800_98395b45-ef87-4f35-b708-ac97d7899eb4.jpg?v=1786014540"},{"product_id":"9780811229715","title":"How to Start Writing (and When to Stop)","description":"In this witty “how-to” guide, Wislawa Szymborska has nothing but sympathy for the labors of would-be writers generally: “I myself started out with rotten poetry and stories,” she confesses in this collection of pieces culled from the advice she gave—anonymously—for many years in the well-known Polish journal \u003cem\u003eLiterary Life\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\n      She returns time and again to the mundane business of writing poetry properly, that is to say, painstakingly and sparingly. “I sigh to be a poet,” Miss A. P. from Bialogard exclaims. “I groan to be an editor,” Szymborska responds.\u003cbr\u003e\n      Szymborska stubbornly insists on poetry’s “prosaic side”: “Let’s take the wings off and try writing on foot, shall we?” This delightful compilation, translated by the peerless Clare Cavanagh, will delight readers and writers alike.\u003cbr\u003e\n       \u003cem\u003ePerhaps you could learn to love in prose\u003c\/em\u003e.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56295049298293,"sku":"9780811229715","price":13.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"9781644212233","title":"Love At First Sight","description":"Love at First Sight is a beautiful poem about love and chance and destiny by the 1996 Polish winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Illustrated by Italian artist Beatrice Gasca Queirazza, Szymborska's poem comes to life in entirely new ways for her readers and for lovers everywhere in this oversized book perfect for gift giving. Szymborska tells of two young lovers bound together in an instant - or were they? As the poem unfolds, the reader's assumptions - like those of the lovers themselves - about certainty and destiny are utterly upended, revealing the paradox and mystery of fate. Here is randomness, tricks of memory, and chance, where noticing the smallest details of our intertwined lives is more essential than asking, Are we meant for each other? 'Every beginning \/ is only a sequel, after all...'","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56302118994293,"sku":"9781644212233","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781644212233_88ced04e-e125-4de8-bc5a-130d7c0e8f48.jpg?v=1786024264"},{"product_id":"9780063490420","title":"Monologue of a Dog","description":"“A Szymborska poem is always charming, wonderfully charming, charming as a small child singing, charming as a great pop-song lyric. But her poems are also, to use an old word, ‘deep,’ mysteriously so, about the very nature of existence.” —Adam Gopnick, the New YorkerFrom the Nobel Prize winner, a classic collection of witty and contemplative poems, featuring a foreword by Billy CollinsIn Monologue of a Dog, Wislawa Szymborska writes with her signature mix of intellect and humor about everything from love unremembered to keys lost in the grass, finding in the smallest moments a path to the vast questions of existence. What begins as a passing thought ends, in her hands, as an x-ray of the human condition.   This bilingual edition, with translations from the incomparable Clare Kavanagh, serves as a perfect introduction for new readers and an essential companion for devoted fans.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56367768764789,"sku":"9780063490420","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780063490420_dda8ef3d-8b01-44b8-8496-6cf2a864be67.jpg?v=1786011101"},{"product_id":"acrobat","title":"The Acrobat","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThis pocketable volume presents a fresh introduction to the vivid and surprising work of a Nobel Prize-winning poet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ehow cunningly he weaves himself through his own former shape\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eand works to seize this swaying world\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eby stretching out the arms he has conceived – \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ebeautiful \u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003ebeyond belief at this passing\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eat this very passing moment that's just passed.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese intimate, immediate poems were written during the precarious years of Soviet occupation in Poland. Rooted in the pains and joys of the everyday, they ask us what it means to live out our lives amid global conflict and its aftermath. Underlying Szymborska’s work is a continual sense of astonishment at having survived, as well as the disbelief and delight that life goes on – that the acrobat's hands have caught the trapeze.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFeaturing Szymborska’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech as an afterword.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTranslated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57481531883893,"sku":"9780571400737","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780571400737.jpg?v=1786089800"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-wislawa-szymborska.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}