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‘Nina Cassian strikes me as one of the best poets alive’, said Howard Moss, while for the late Stanley Kunitz she was ‘a world-class poet, high spirited, fierce, intelligent, uncompromising, and wonderfully nervy.’

Continuum follows the path taken in Take My Word for It, with poems written in her original English. As in her translated Romanian poems, Nina Cassian is a born lyric story-teller. Many of her poems take the form of short fables or even parables, fashioned with a unique blend of fantasy, seriousness and humour. The section titles (Remember, Creatures from Inner Space, Travelling,
Homages, Love’s Boomerang, Finale) give an idea of the book’s range and her capacity for striking turns of phrase, but do not suggest the expressive power which reaches new heights in the longer poem ‘Interpreting Bach’.

Born in Romania in 1924, Nina Cassian has published over fifty books, including works of fiction and children’s books. She is also a composer and translator, and was a journalist and film critic. She has lived in New York City since 1985, when she remained in the West for fear of reprisals from the authorities in the then communist Romania of Ceausescu. Her work is now published again in Romania.

'It is the grand, lyric sweep of her poems on love and memory which gives
the reader the sensation of being in the company of a one-woman orchestra'
— Carol Ann Duffy, The Guardian on Life Sentence

‘There is no one else like her’ — Adam Thorpe, Literary Review

'Nina Cassian is, at eighty-four, the elder stateswoman of that cluster of fine Romanian women poets, from more than one literary generation, who reached poetic maturity under Ceausescu.' - Fiona Sampson, Times Literary Supplement

The range and power of `Continuum' will make clear Cassian's stature as a major contributor to modern and contemporary poetry to all who read the collection. - Douglas Houston Poetry Review, Vol. 99, No. 2