Old Songs

"Olga Sedakova is a writer of global significance. . .the publishing of
this collection is a welcome stage in the reception of her exceptional genius
in the West." So writes Rowan Williams in his foreword to this translation of Old Songs.

Born in Moscow in 1949, Olga
Sedakova emerged as a leading writer of the late Soviet period. Since 2014, she
has been an outspoken critic of Russia's war on Ukraine. Her writing bears
witness to the values of generosity, attention, and non-violence. The poems in Old
Songs construct a world shaped by these values, forming a lyric sequence
infused with folk wisdom and anchored in moral courage. It is a world brought
into being by song, the kind passed down over cradles and on walks through the
garden. These poems find their way into your memory and accompany you on your
way.



Sedakova is not only one of
Russia's most revered contemporary poets but also a scholar and essayist. Often
compared to figures such as Czesław Miłosz, she has,
with this volume (according to Rowan Williams), succeeded in "conveying the
sense of a forgotten directness of perception and relation-not a lost
simplicity, exactly, but a larger and more human world. . . ."