Posthumous Life of R. W. by Jean Frémon and translated by Cole Swensen

This is poetry from France.

Posthumous Life of R. W. by Jean Frémon translated by Cole Swensen is published by Omnidawn Publishing. This is a Book originally written in French. This was published in 2014.0 and has the ISBN of 9.781890650711E12.

Posthumous Life of R. W., translated from the French by Cole Swensen, brings Jean Frémon’s French-language work into English through Omnidawn Publishing. Published in 2014, it is best approached as a book of encounter rather than as a book to solve. Frémon’s title suggests afterlife as literary form, a way for one writer to accompany another through memory, homage, and invention. The pleasure of a book like this is the permission it gives to move slowly. A reader does not have to master every reference to feel the work at hand. Sometimes the task is simply to notice how a sentence leans, how an image opens, how a voice from France changes the room around English.

If you’d like to see international poetry continue and gain traction, consider requesting this work from your local library, or purchasing it from places like Open Books (a poetry only bookstore), Asterism Books (an independent press distributor), or bookshop.org to connect you with your local bookstores.

Check out more of the always in-progress translated poetry index here.