"Teach Me How to Whisper’s spirit fluctuates between pandimensional immensities and compactness. Some of the poems portray Marinaj’s youth in Albania, where oral balladry and epic verse influenced his formation."—World Literature Today
"An exciting addition to Albanian literature-in-translation and, more broadly, to world poetry."—Wayne Miller, author of The City, Our City
"A beacon for all of humanity and for the young people who will write the history, including the literary history, of the near future. For those who will be the protagonists of transformation and change for the better in the society of the world."—Angela De Leo, DaBitanto
"The book shows that Marinaj's worldwide reputation is based not only on his expansive reach in the outside world, but also on sensitivity to inner worlds and other worldliness—common to everyone but revealed in a special way by the labor of careful, heartfelt poetic craft."—Apraksin Blues
"Step into the world of Teach Me How to Whisper where the richness of the human experience is wrapped up in a vibrant red cover, inviting you to delve into its nine distinct sections: Home, Albania, Amor, Admonitions, Acheron, Heroines, Metaphysics, Poets, and the Earth."—Different Truths
Description
The works of Gjekë Marinaj, Albania’s leading poet, have been praised, translated, published, and discussed in over twenty languages and countries. His most celebrated poem, “Horses,” drew the attention of the dictatorship’s censors when it was published and forced Marinaj to escape his country. Later, the poem became the anthem for the democratic forces that freed the country. He has won several of the world’s most prestigious prizes for his poetry and criticism, but his remarkable body of passionate, profound, and wildly original poetry is only now translated and published in English for the first time.
Frederick Turner, a prizewinning Anglo-American poet, critic, and translator, has translated this generous collection of Marinaj’s major poems into English with the close collaboration of the poet himself. Gathered into nine sections—Home, Albania, Amor, Admonitions, Acheron, Heroines, Metaphysics, Poets, and The Earth—the volume concludes with an extraordinary, long poem, “The Lost Layers of Vyasa’s Skin.” With his fascinating introductory essay, Turner contextualizes Marinaj’s work, describing the ways Albanian history, culture, and politics have energized Marinaj’s poetry and its poetics.
About the Author
Gjekë Marinaj is an Albanian-born American poet, world literature scholar, translator, and literary critic. He has received several international awards, including two National Insignia Prizes from the Vietnam Writers’ Association, Italy’s International Author Prize, Uzbekistan’s Poet of the World Prize, West Bengal’s World Poet Prize, India’s ISISAR Award for seeking peace through literature, and South Korea’s Changwon KC International Literary Prize. He has received multiple nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Frederick Turner is Founders Professor of Arts and Humanities emeritus at the University of Texas at Dallas. A prolific and award-winning author of over forty books that include literary criticism, poetry, and science fiction, he is also a celebrated translator. His works include Light within the Shade: Eight Hundred Years of Hungarian Poetry, which he coedited and co-translated with Zsuzsanna Ozsváth.
