Portraits

Description

Elaine Feinstein has always written most intensiy about people. In this book, she remembers friends she has loved, writers she has known and literary figures from the past. She writes of the Russian poet Bella Akhmadulina with tender admiration; the East End poet Emanuel Litvinoff, at work in his Bloomsbury flat; and Masha Enzensberger, who brought Feinstein into the world of Marina Tsvetaeva. As she imagines Raymond Chandler, Isaac Rosenberg or Billie Holiday her words about them say things about herself. In the closing poem, 'Death and the Lemon Tree', she finds a compelling image for the privilege of continuing to write into old age.

Elaine Feinstein is a poet, novelist and biographer. She has received many prizes, and her books have been translated into most European languages, including Russian, as well as Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Her versions of the poems of Marina Tsvetaeva have remained in print since 1971. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and received a Civil List Pension in 2010.

This is a fascinating book, a real page-turner. These subtle, warm, multi-faceted studies of writers and friends remind us that Elaine Feinstein is our great poet-storyteller, as emotionally intelligent as she is observant. - Fiona Sampson Poems of great power and beauty from one of our finest poets...truly, a wonderful collection. - Brian Patten She has a sinewy, tenacious way of exploring her subject which seems to me unique. Her simple, clean language follows the track of the nerves. - Ted Hughes