WIN $150 GIFT VOUCHERS: ALADDIN'S GOLD
Ren Char was born in L'Isle-sur-Sorgue in the south of France in 1907 and died in Paris in 1988. A major influence on the generation of French poets who came of age after the Second World War, he was a close friend and associate of Albert Camus. He is widely considered the foremost French poet of his generation.
A fresh authoritative English translation . . . . Char's insightful reflections offer a point-of-view that's as intimate as that within which he was living, engaged with the life-and-death consequences of the operation at hand. . . . The poet's work is maintenance of the record by which the rest of us may take stock of our lives. Char's words are abundantly informed by the actions he undertook. The merits of reading them remain as worthwhile today as ever. -- The Rumpus Some of [Char's] most incisive writing about poetry. . . . A superb new translation. . . . Hutchinson's locution suggests a candid manager with no time to waste on ceremony. -- On the Seawall Superbly translated. . . . Both inspiring and astonishing to read. -- Times Literary Supplement The book is a masterpiece of war poetry in part because it has so little resemblance to what we commonly imagine war poetry to be. It is pensive and philosophical rather than grandiloquent or dramatic. . . . Great books deserve translations in excess of what they actually require, and Hutchinson's version is wonderfully lucid and supple. It was my favorite book of poetry in 2015. -- Sam Sacks, Open Letters Monthly The Inventors is meant to be read alongside Hutchinson's other translation, Hypnos: Notes from the French Resistance, and for me this is not optional--independently they are each beautiful books, but together they are stunning. -- Bookslut Hutchinson's translation of Hypnos is a thing of rare intelligence and beauty. It is as if we were truly hearing Char for the first time in English. -- Richard Sieburth, New York University
