Under Balkan Light - Berengarten, Richard

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Résumé :
Written during and after the disintegration of Yugoslavia, this book presents a complex vision of the Balkans that flinches from neither brutality nor beauty but honours dignity and courage. The book starts with a tour-de-force, the long poem 'Do vidjenje Danits?' ('Goodbye Balkan Belle'), and continues with a series of memorial tablets for victims of Jasenovac concentration camp. The book includes a sequence in memory of the Serbian, Yugoslav and Mediterranean poet, Ivan V. Lalic. Under Balkan Light forms the final part of Richard Berengarten's Balkan Trilogy and is published together with the first two parts, The Blue Butterfly and In a Time of Drought. It is also the fifth volume in the Salt series of his Selected Writings. Richard Berengarten used to be known as Richard Burns. With the publication of this book, he now repossesses the family name of his father, the cellist and saxophonist Alexander Berengarten.

Biographie:
Richard Berengarten was born in London in 1943, into a family of musicians. He has lived in Italy, Greece, the USA and former Yugoslavia. His writing integrates multiple strands, including English, French, Mediterranean, Jewish, Slavic, American and Asian influences. Under the name Richard Burns, he has published more than 25 books. In the 1970s, he founded and ran the international Cambridge Poetry Festival. In the UK he has received the Eric Gregory Award, the Wingate-Jewish Quarterly Award for Poetry, the Keats Poetry Prize, and the Yeats Club Prize. In Serbia, he has received the international Morava Charter Poetry Prize and the Great Lesson Award, and in Macedonia (FYR), the Manada Prize. He has been Writer-in-Residence at the international Eliot-Dante Colloquium in Florence, Arts Council Writer-in-Residence at the Victoria Centre in Gravesend, Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Newnham College, Cambridge, and a Royal Literary Fund Project Fellow. He has been Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Notre Dame and British Council Lecturer in Belgrade. He is currently a Fellow of the English Association, a Bye-Fellow at Downing College, Cambridge and an Academic Associate at Pembroke College, Cambridge. His poems have been translated into more than 90 languages....

Sommaire:
Written during and after the disintegration of Yugoslavia, this book presents a complex vision of the Balkans that flinches from neither brutality nor beauty but honours dignity and courage. The book starts with a tour-de-force, the long poem 'Do vidjenje Danits?' ('Goodbye Balkan Belle'), and continues with a series of memorial tablets for victims of Jasenovac concentration camp. The book includes a sequence in memory of the Serbian, Yugoslav and Mediterranean poet, Ivan V. Lalic. Under Balkan Light forms the final part of Richard Berengarten's Balkan Trilogy and is published together with the first two parts, The Blue Butterfly and In a Time of Drought. It is also the fifth volume in the series of his Selected Writings. Richard Berengarten used to be known as Richard Burns. With the publication of this book, he now repossesses the family name of his father, the cellist and saxophonist Alexander Berengarten....