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Night Talks
Translated by Rika Lesser. Written after the tragic and unexpected loss of her young husband, this spare and startling collection by celebrated Swedish poet and novelist Elisabeth Rynell offers a raw elegy in which everything lived--a visit with a therapist, a memory of lovemaking, a venture into the wilderness--becomes an expression of grief. Unflinching in their refusal of irony, these poems are elegantly rendered in Rika Lesser's translation, which is the first appearance of Rynell's verse in English. "Rika Lesser's fine translation recreates the demanding original with sympathetic resonance and perfect pitch." --Richard Howard
"Elisabeth Rynell's Night Talks --which can be read as either one long poem or a cycle of shorter poems--spirals around a woman who experiences the abrupt death of a husband still young. With its concise, intense lines, spare but far from simple, Night Talks oscillates between stark grief and memories of lush sensuality. American poet Rika Lesser brings Rynell's requiem into English with unerring sensitivity. . . . In Rika Lesser's skilled hands, Elisabeth Rynell is revealed as a poet of startling depth coupled with a firm and unpretentious humanness." --Susanna Nied " Elisabeth Rynell's Night Talks , translated from the Swedish by Rika Lesser, is an essential work for the twenty-first century. In poems naked as flames, the book confronts a death and its 'out of this despair / grows a force / more than human. . . .' Night Talks is visceral, broken, adamant; Lesser's translation is seamless."--D. Nurkse Poetry. Women's Studies.
"Elisabeth Rynell's Night Talks --which can be read as either one long poem or a cycle of shorter poems--spirals around a woman who experiences the abrupt death of a husband still young. With its concise, intense lines, spare but far from simple, Night Talks oscillates between stark grief and memories of lush sensuality. American poet Rika Lesser brings Rynell's requiem into English with unerring sensitivity. . . . In Rika Lesser's skilled hands, Elisabeth Rynell is revealed as a poet of startling depth coupled with a firm and unpretentious humanness." --Susanna Nied " Elisabeth Rynell's Night Talks , translated from the Swedish by Rika Lesser, is an essential work for the twenty-first century. In poems naked as flames, the book confronts a death and its 'out of this despair / grows a force / more than human. . . .' Night Talks is visceral, broken, adamant; Lesser's translation is seamless."--D. Nurkse Poetry. Women's Studies.
98 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
22 people want to read
About the author
Elisabeth Rynell
19 books11 followersElisabeth Rynell (born 17 May 1954) is a Swedish poet and novelist. Her novel Till Mervas (2002), the first to be translated into English, appeared in 2011 as Mervas.
Born in Stockholm, Rynell was the daughter of an English teacher and a nurse. After completing her schooling, she spent a year in England as an au pair. She has also visited Iran and Afghanistan on an overland trip to Pakistan and India. After spending much of her life in the far north of Sweden, she now lives in Stockholm and Hälsingland.
After her husband died when he was only 22, Rynell embarked on her writing career, publishing seven collections of poetry and four novels, both highly esteemed in Sweden. Her first collection of poems Nattliga samtal (Noctural Conversations) appeared in 1990 but it was her novel Hohaj (1997) which brought her into the limelight and earned her two literary prizes. Her most recent work, Skrivandets sinne (Sense of Writing, 2013) is a collection of autobiographical essays evoking her writings about the city and the countryside as well as accounts of her closest friends, including the author Sara Lidman.
Elisabeth Rydall has received several awards including the Swedish Radio Novel Prize in 1998 for Hohal, the Swedish Academy's Dobloug Prize in 2007 and the Sara Lidman Prize in 2014.
(from Wikipedia)
Born in Stockholm, Rynell was the daughter of an English teacher and a nurse. After completing her schooling, she spent a year in England as an au pair. She has also visited Iran and Afghanistan on an overland trip to Pakistan and India. After spending much of her life in the far north of Sweden, she now lives in Stockholm and Hälsingland.
After her husband died when he was only 22, Rynell embarked on her writing career, publishing seven collections of poetry and four novels, both highly esteemed in Sweden. Her first collection of poems Nattliga samtal (Noctural Conversations) appeared in 1990 but it was her novel Hohaj (1997) which brought her into the limelight and earned her two literary prizes. Her most recent work, Skrivandets sinne (Sense of Writing, 2013) is a collection of autobiographical essays evoking her writings about the city and the countryside as well as accounts of her closest friends, including the author Sara Lidman.
Elisabeth Rydall has received several awards including the Swedish Radio Novel Prize in 1998 for Hohal, the Swedish Academy's Dobloug Prize in 2007 and the Sara Lidman Prize in 2014.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 21, 2021
Night Talks is a raw expression of grief / a long poem and lament written upon the sudden death of Rynell’s husband. It’s beautiful and hard. Most of it is poetry, but she bookends it with a moving interview with her sleepless self at night and with stills of memories.
I began reading poetry when in need of words I couldn’t find myself, and I am always grateful for those who commit to paper their thoughts in the midst of pain. It makes some books strange to recommend, but they are there for when you need them. This is one of them.
I began reading poetry when in need of words I couldn’t find myself, and I am always grateful for those who commit to paper their thoughts in the midst of pain. It makes some books strange to recommend, but they are there for when you need them. This is one of them.
Displaying 1 of 1 review