This bilingual selection of 79 great poems by Alexander Pushkin with verse translations by Philip Nikolayev (226 pages), is intended for students and for everyone with an interest in Russia and her greatest poet. Nikolayev’s translations not only accurately convey the meaning and style of the originals, but also bring to life their form in sparkling English verse, aiming to make the poet’s genius accessible to a broader humanity.
“I cannot imagine a better introduction to Pushkin for the English reader!” – William Mills Todd III, Harvard University
ISBN 979-8-9851762-0-9
What Readers Say about This Book
“Philip Nikolayev gives us a new Pushkin, which is to say, the one who has lived nearly two centuries in Russian, and has remained mostly unknown to readers in English. A daring, dashing, gambler of a poet who is yet sensitively naive, humane, spiritual. Nikolayev’s virtuoso approach is radical for its deep reverence for tradition. He is equally skilled at rendering the intimacy of dreams and the expansiveness of larger poetic gestures. Pushkin is the dazzling star we have been waiting for. We must be grateful to Nikolayev for the lyrical ecstasy radiating from these pages. Pushkin our star patiently waiting for us to catch up with seeing him there in the sky of our dreams.” – Michael Londra (New York, NY)
“As a fully bilingual Russian American, I’m delighted by The Star of Dazzling Ecstasy. Philip Nikolayev’s new translations of Pushkin go beyond any previous English translation of the poet to embody the true poetic sense, form and meter of Russia’s greatest poet’s work. In a fresh, modern and easy-to-read English, Nikolayev paints the true genius of Pushkin’s poetry with a new brush for a new audience.” – Julia Kleyman (Long Beach, CA)
“Dazzling Ecstasy is just what you will experience when you read these translations. The Star you see is Pushkin’s shining in the English sky.” – Joe Green, poet (Saint Paul, MN)
“Philip Nikolayev's The Star of Dazzling Ecstasy brings the robust poetry of Pushkin forward into a new age while retaining the subtle force of the Master.” – Karen Vann-Monaghan (Durham, NC)
“Probably the finest Pushkin for the non-Russian reader. Given the translator's own enviable felicity in both languages, his ear and eye for rhythm and thereby the serene, harmonious superposition of forms, this is viewing Pushkin through a glass, not darkly but with the radiance of the original not a whit diminished. It is unlikely to be bettered.” – K.V.K. Murthy (Bangalore, India)
“As we are told in the well-researched intro, Pushkin wrote over 800 lyric poems. Philip Nikolayev has translated Pushkin’s poems in this volume in an extraordinary manner. It seems to me Mr. Nikolayev has captured the rhythm of Pushkin as well as his dazzling images. This metered translation sounds like this, from “To Anna Kern”:
My mind retains with bright precision
The day you first appeared before me
A momentary fleeting vision
And genius of perfect form…
Can u hear the rhythm? I like his translations of Russian poetry because Mr. Nikolayev retains the essence of any lyric poetry: the song. Five stars!” – Tom Walsh (Dover, DE)
“Though I have several translations of Pushkin, "The Star of Dazzling Ecstasy" is my real introduction to the world of his poetry. And what a wonderful poet he is! But it takes a translator with both skill and heart to convey those wonders to someone like me who can't read them in their native language and didn't grow up reading them in school. Philip Nikolayev has done this admirably, and "Star..." is a lovely book. I hope it gets the attention it deserves.” – Joe Blanda (Austin, TX)
“Got mine and loving it!” – Ann Kristin Fiske (Oslo, Norway)
About the Translator
Dr. Philip Nikolayev, born in 1966, is a bilingual Russo-American poet living in Boston. He is a polyglot and translates poetry from several languages. He holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Harvard and a PhD from Boston University, where he defended his thesis on Samuel Beckett under the advisership of Christiopher Ricks. Nikolayev’s poems and translations are published internationally, including such periodicals as Poetry, The Paris Review, Harvard Review, Grand Street, and on the Library of Congress website. He is the author of several collections of verse, including Monkey Time (Wave Books; winner of the 2001 Verse Prize) and Letters from Aldenderry (Salt). Nikolayev lives in Cambridge, MA, and is coeditor-in-chief of Fulcrum: An Anthology of Poetry and Aesthetics.