Top 10 collections of translated poetry, from a single Chinese store:
- Paul Celan, Selected Poetry and Prose
- Rainer Maria Rilke, Selected Poems
- Dylan Thomas, Selected Poems
- Jorge Luis Borges, Selected Poems
- Emily Dickinson, Selected Poems
- Allen Ginsberg, Selected Poems
- Friedrich Hölderlin, Poems
- Constantine P. Cavafy, Collected Poems
- Federico Garcia Lorca, Selected Poetry
- The Eddas
Not a bad list, I would like to know more about their clientele. The top four "General Titles in Poetry" are:
- Friedrich Hölderlin, Collected Prose
- Martin Heidegger, Elucidations of Holderlin’s Poetry
- Wang Zuoliang, History of English Poetry
- Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation
Thanks to Yan Li for the pointer.
Holderlin? They like him? They really like him? In the 1950s or 60s, a translation of Holderlin’s poem “To the Fates” appeared in an American magazine (Vogue, I think, unlikely as that seems.). I clipped it, then lost it. It was by far the most graceful version I’ve ever found. (The last lines read “Once I lived like the gods. More is not needed.”) In the unlikely event anyone knows the author/source of that translation, please let me know.
MR is the most delightfully unexpected blog of the many I read.
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