The Illegal Age

by Ellen Hinsey

Ellen Hinsey's new book-length sequence, The Illegal Age, is a powerful investigation into the twentieth-century's dark legacy of totalitarianism and the rise of political illegality. It explores the enduring potential for human beings to set neighbour against neighbour and commit final acts of violence. A book of lyrical reflection and prophesy, The Illegal Age chronicles the arrival of a new, disquieting reality unfolding in our midst. As Marilyn Hacker has written, "In dialogue with Celan, Szymborska, Milosz... this is a daring text - for its political acuity, and for its demonstration of the power in poetry to recount, remember, move the heart while opening the mind." Written in parallel with her first-hand research into the rise of authoritarianism carried out over the last decade, Hinsey's volume warns that - rather than an "Age of Anxiety" - we may indeed be facing the start of the "Illegal Age".

Genres: Poetry

Hardcover

Published July 27, 2018

About the author

American author Ellen Hinsey has for the last two decades lived in Europe. She has taught at the French graduate school the Ecole Polytechnique and currently teaches at Skidmore College’s Paris program.
Hinsey’s first poetry collection, "Cities of Memory," won the Yale University Series Award in Poetry. Beginning in February 2002, she traveled to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague to listen to witness sessions. Her third book, "Update on the Descent," addresses this experience and was a finalist for the National Poetry Series.
She is the translator of "The Wild Harmonies" and "The Secret Piano."

Reviews

[M. Sarki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ellen Hinsey is one of the best in our midst. Read my review:

https://msarki.substack.com/p/the-ill...

https://open.substack.com/pub/msarki/...