A Hand Full of Water
"Listen carefully. . . . She has something to say."—Joseph Brodsky
"Tzveta Sofronieva's poetry sparkles. Her memories go from Homer and Dostoyevski to Charlie Chaplin's dance steps. Above all Sofronieva is a mythological poet. Each narration is a Cavafian voyage, never completed in order to wonder. The lucent version by Chantal Wright captures the verse and fluid images of Sofronieva's poetry—Willis Barnstone, judge
Tzveta Sofronieva was born in Sofia in 1963 and lives in Berlin, Germany. She is the author of eight poetry books and a short story collection, and was the winner of the first Cliff Becker Prize for Translation. This bilingual English/German collection is Sofronieva's first in the Untied States.
Chantal Wright is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Tzveta Sofronieva: A physicist and historian of science by training, Tzveta Sofronieva is the author of nine collections of poetry. Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, she settled in Berlin, Germany in 1992.
A Hand Full of Water was published in German in 2008. She is currently the Max Kade Writer-in-Residence at MIT in Boston.
Chantal Wright: Chantal Wright is Assistant Professor of German and Translation at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her translation of Tzveta Sofronieva's Eine Hand voll Wasser (A Hand Full of Water) was supported by an award from PEN American Center's 2009 translation fund.
