To the Ashes
Polonskaya's second book with Zephyr reflects unflinchingly upon themes of exile and the anguish it can cause, home, war, authoritarianism, and personal relationships. Trains and ships figure in many poems, but their overall trajectory take us to the edge of a precipice: of loss, separation, death, and mortality. The award-winning poet lives in Germany because of threats she received in Russia after writing poems of political dissent, including poems for Kursk: An Oratorio Requiem, about the 2000 sinking of the Russian submarine. Those oratorio poems were included in Paul Klee's Boat, published by Zephyr in 2013, and short-listed for both the 2014 PEN Poetry in Translation Award and the 2014 Best Translated Book Award. This bilingual edition of To the Ashes will allow English-speaking and Russian readers to read Polonskaya's latest work, as she can no longer publish her poetry in her native country.
Andrew Wachtel is president of the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and previously, was a dean and professor at Northwestern University. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, his interests range from Russian literature and culture to East European and Balkan culture, history and politics to contemporary Central Asia. His most recent published books are The Balkans in World History (Oxford UP, 2008), Russian Literature (with Ilya Vinitsky, Polity Press, 2008), and Remaining Relevant After Communism: The Role of the Writer in Eastern Europe (U. of Chicago Press, 2006). He has translated poetry and prose from Russian, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Bulgarian and Slovene. Currently he is working on a project relating to cultural nationalism in Central Asia, particularly Kyrgyzstan.
