Recent Reviews and News

Two Zephyr Press books have been shortlisted for the 2014 Best Translated Book Awards from Three Percent. Relocations and Paul Klee’s Boat are among ten books vying for selection as the poetry winner. Two Zephyr translators, Sean Cotter and Steve Bradbury, also have books in contention, Cotter in fiction and Bradbury in poetry.

Colonies, by Tomasz Różycki and translated by Mira Rosenthal, has been shortlisted for the Griffin Prize. The winners, to be announced at the Griffin Poetry Prize Awards on Thursday, June 5th, in Toronto, will each be awarded $65,000.

Relocations is a highly enjoyable collection of poetry introducing the English-language world to three incredibly diverse and talented women poets writing in Russian that could be as meaningful to a casual fan of poetry as to a comparative literature scholar. [full review]
—Will Evans, Three Percent

Yu Xiang’s poems are the poetic equivalent of shoegazer rock. She takes the mundane—a whiff of cigarette smoke, a falling leaf, a housefly—and stares at it so intently that it splits open to reveal something unexpected. [full review]
—Naomi Long Eagleson, Words Without Borders

Różycki is a cultural ambassador of a particular generational experience: that of the grandchildren of the Poles moved west from their eastern cities. His generation, like mine, represents new growth of old family lines in new soil. [full review]
—Nicole Zdeb, The Quarterly Conversation

That a rare poet like Bai Hua has an accomplished poet like Fiona Sze-Lorrain to bring his work to an English-speaking audience is wonderful. The result is a beautiful collection that helps the reader understand a poet of such quiet restraint and largeness of heart. [full review]
—Zafar Anjum, Kitaab, Asia+n writing in English

The title of the book [Wind Says] succinctly characterizes Bai's style—restless, murmuring, with an impressionistic brevity of image—and also displays Sze-Lorrain's translating prowess. [full review]
—Henry W. Leung, AsymptoteJournal.com

Paul Klee’s Boat, Anzhelina Polonskaya’s [latest book], is an emotional journey through the bleakest seasons of the human soul, translated with great nuance by Andrew Wachtel… a vital addition to the contemporary poetry canon, a collection as interesting as it is touching that will inevitably be remembered for years to come. [full review]
—Will Evans, Three Percent

Motherless Child is a superbly wrought romantic page-turner that has elements in it of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, with more than a touch of the latter’s gothic essence. [full review]
—Bill Gladstone, Canadian Jewish News

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Zephyr Press, founded in 1980, is a non-profit independent literary press whose titles foster a deeper understanding of cultures and languages from around the world. Since 1990, we have focused on literature in translation, particularly from Russia, Slavic countries and East Asia, including our new series of Chinese poetry in conjunction with the Jintian Literary Foundation.

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