Vega’s Fugitive

An incandescent new collected translation of virtuosic Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva

Marina Tsvetaeva needs no introduction—a poetic genius, she is one of the most gifted and original poets in the Russian literary canon.  All the verse genres Tsvetaeva employed, including lyric poems, poetic cycles, and long narrative poems, are represented here, in Vega’s Fugitive, translated by award-winning translator and Tsvetaeva scholar Alyssa Dinega Gillespie. Tsvetaeva’s poems, some never-before translated, appear in potent English versions that are both highly faithful to the originals and lyrical in their own right. As a result, Tsvetaeva’s verse—with its driving rhythms, striking sound plays, and searing insights—is reborn in a new language and new constellations of meaning. These poems dive fearlessly into themes of place, time, and distance; the female body; the poet’s fate; desire and longing; grief, loss, and immortality. Vega’s Fugitive makes Tsvetaeva’s masterful work not just accessible, but unforgettable for English-language readers around the world.