The first American translation of this fine poetry collection by Marie Étienne, centered on the French experience in Indochina (Vietnam), first appearing in book form in the Lumière ouverte series of Scandéditions, Paris, 1993. Translated by Anne Talvaz, illustrated by Sandra Monciardini.
Set against the background of the Japanese occupation of the French colony of Indochina in the early 1940s, this richly lyrical collection captures both its terrors and its marvels. We begin with a child’s perspective, which gradually broadens in documentary and historical scope. Marie Etienne has a perfect eye for sensual detail and a style marked by startling and unexpected choices, both semantic and graphic. All of this is masterfully captured in Anne Talvaz’s beautiful translation; she has achieved a seamless re-embodiment of a deeply moving testament. (Cole Swensen)
Marie Etienne is one of the most accomplished and intriguing contemporary French poets, combining a keen narrative sense, indeed a compulsion, with ludic formal experimentation. Anne Talvaz, herself an admired French poet with related preoccupations, has masterfully translated this multivocal sequence focused on wartime Indochina. (Marilyn Hacker)
