A Round of Stories, Songs, Spells, Proverbs and Riddles: Chosen by Vasko Popa, edited and translated by Andrew Harvey & Anne Pennington.

An enchanting selection from one of Europe’s richest traditions of folk literature. The vitality of Popa’s chosen material is wonderfully conveyed in this adaptation by Andrew Harvey and Anne Pennington.

"[Andrew] Harvey and [Anne] Pennington pursue a transparent translation in an easy and familiar English, foregoing the blandishment of archaisms while maintaining the specificity and strangeness of encountering another time and place. While proverbs and riddles offer universalisable observations, spells against scab and jaundice speak to a particular historical configuration as well as a nice perception of the equivalence in a metaphor (jaundice is a yellow cock or candle) that cosmopolitan postmoderns appear to have foregone. Popa thus offers us poetry that does something, that believes in an active language whose intention derives not from an author but from the power of words themselves."
Sophie Mayer, Modern Poetry in Translation

"You idle your way through this delightfully serendipitous book in the good company of angel children, peahens and complaining poplars. It is richly odd and delightfully unpredictable."
Michael Glover, The Tablet

Vasko Popa (1922-91), Serbia’s greatest modern poet, was born and brought up in the Banat district. His Collected Poems in English was introduced by his admirer Ted Hughes.

Anne Pennington (1934-81) was a Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall where she held the Chair of Comparative Slavonic Philology. She translated Vasko Popa’s Collected Poems.

Andrew Harvey, born in 1952 in South India, is a religious scholar, writer, teacher, and the author of more than 30 books. He is Founder Director of the Institute of Sacred Activism.