I'm certainly aware of the awe and esteem in which Akhmatova is held but, even with the aid of some notes at the end of the book, it was all a little too 'inside (Russia) baseball' for my taste. While there were many wonderful phrases and references, it wasn't a particularly enjoyable read; in the way that some difficult texts can be. ( )

I'm sorry, but these translations were awfully pedestrian. What happened to the poetry? ( )

Anna Akhmatova lived and wrote at the eye of the storm that overtook Russia in the first half of the twentieth century. She suffered and endured through revolution and war, terror and famine. Her acquaintances, lovers, husband and son were shot, or arrested and dragged off into the Gulag. But her work transcends her life; in clear, classical, measured Russian, she draws art from tragedy. Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward's translations equal the strength of Akhmatova's poems. ( )