If Not, Winter: The Complete Fragments Of Sappho – 9781844080816

A superb version . . .

subtle, beautiful, precise, moving’ THE TIMESThe definitive complete translation of Sappho, by one of the world’s greatest living poetsNot much is known about Sappho, the great poetess of Ancient Greece. Her relationships, her queerness, her family, her death – all these details are hazy, lost to time. Likewise, of the nine scrolls of lyrics Sappho is said to have composed during her life on the island of Lebsos, only one poem has survived complete – the rest are fragments.

In If Not, Winter, Anne Carson has collected and translated all the surviving fragments of Sappho’s verse. With the original Greek parallel to each poem, Carson leaves brackets and white space to signal the gaps where text has been lost to time – allowing us to imagine the poems as they were written. With her singular style and extensive translator’s notes, Carson pieces together the voice of Sappho.

And through her, Sappho’s reflections on love and desire, suitors and rivals, goddesses and daughters, echo through millennia. ‘The beautiful blur of Sappho’s work, the rhythms, the ornate grammar, the singing sounds she teases out of rare words . .

. are impossible to match’ DAILY TELEGRAPH ‘Imaginatively presented and superbly prefaced, this collection is both heartrending and uplifting’ INDEPENDENT’A defining translation’ THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO SAPPHO’Anne Carson’s translations of Sappho are small miracles of vividness’ EMILY ROBINSON, ANNE CARSON: ECSTATIC LYRE ‘[Carson’s] command of language is honed to a perfect edge and her approach to the text, respectful yet imaginative, results in verse that lets Sappho shine forth’ LOS ANGELES TIMES’A spare and elegant rendering of every word of Sappho’s that has come down to us’ MERYL ALTMAN, A WOMAN’S REVIEW OF BOOKS’A haunting translation’ LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS