Remnants of Another Age

Macedonia's Nikola Madzirov is one of the most powerful voices in contemporary European poetry. Born in a family of Balkan War refugees in Strumica in 1973, he grew up in the Soviet era in the former Republic of Yugoslavia ruled by Marshall Tito. When he was 18, the collapse of Yugoslavia prompted a shift in his sense of identity - as a writer reinventing himself in a country which felt new but was still nourished by deeply rooted historical traditions. The example and work of the great East European poets of the postwar period - Vasko Popa, Czeslaw Milosz, Zbigniew Herbert - were liberating influences on his writing and thinking. The German weekly magazine Der Spiegel compared the quality of his poetry to Tomas Transtromer's. There is a clear line from their generation, and that of more recent figures like Adam Zagajewski from Poland, to Nikola Madzirov, but Madzirov's voice is a new 21st century voice in European poetry and he is one of the most outstanding figures of the post-Soviet generation. Remnants of Another Age, his first book of poetry published in English, is introduced by Carolyn Forche, who writes: 'Madzirov calls himself "an involuntary descendant of refugees", referring to his family's flight from the Balkan Wars a century ago: his surname derives from mazir or majir, meaning "people without a home". The ideas of shelter and of homelessness, of nomadism, and spiritual transience serves as a palimpsest in these Remnants' - while Madzirov himself tells us in one of his poems, 'History is the first border I have to cross.' Bilingual Macedonian-English edition.

About the Author :
Macedonian poet, editor, essayist and translator Nikola Madzirov was born in Strumica in 1973 to a family of Balkan War refugees, and grew up in the Soviet era in the former Republic of Yugoslavia ruled by Marshall Tito. He was 18 when Macedonia gained independence, and has since published several collections of poetry, including Studentski Zbor award-winner Locked in the City (1999), Aco Karamanov Award-winner Somewhere Nowhere (1999), and Relocated Stone (2007), winner of the Hubert Burda Prize for East European poets. The contemporary jazz composer and collaborator of Bjork and Lou Reed, Oliver Lake, has composed music based on Madzirov's poems. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages. The first translation of his poetry into English was Remnants of Another Age, translated by Peggy Reid, Graham Reid, Magdalena Horvat and Adam Reed, and published with a foreword by Carolyn Forche by BOA Editions in the US in 2011 and by Bloodaxe Books in the UK in 2013. A German edition, Versetzter Stein, translated by Alexander Sitzmann, was published by Hanser Verlag in 2011. He has taken part in many literature festivals, including Poetry Parnassus at London's Southbank Centre in 2012, and has received several international awards and fellowships, including the DJS award for contemporary world poetry in China, International Writing Program at the University of Iowa and Literarisches Tandem in Berlin. His other honours include the Marguerite Yourcenar fellowship, the Miladinov Brothers poetry prize (Struga Poetry Evenings) and residencies at KulturKontakt in Vienna, LCB in Berlin and Villa Waldberta in Munich. He is one of the coordinators of the international poetry network for Lyrikline.

Review :
'Arresting, enigmatic and mysterious in the great Eastern European tradition' - Simon Armitage. 'Madzirov's poems are like Expressionist paintings: filled with thick, energetic streaks they seem to emerge from the imagination and to return to it right away, like night animals caught in the headlights of a car. "We are the remnants of another age" - Nikola Madzirov succeeds in convincing us' - Adam Zagajewski. 'He is a truly exceptional poet of great lyrical depth, purity, insight and originality. I am certain that he is one of the great European poets of our generation - His poetry has some parallels with major philosophical/contemplative poets like Mark Strand and Louise Gluck, but is rooted in a Balkan sensibility of dispossession and woundedness, and is more intimate and emotionally affecting (his poems make me feel at once happy and sad, like all the best poetry - )' - Kapka Kassabova. 'Madzirov created loud silence. He brought back the space and peace to the power. There are times (now) when we long after exactly this kind of purity' - Tomaz Salamun. 'Nikola Madzirov's poems move mysteriously by means of a profound inner concentration, giving expression to the deepest laws of the mind. Their linguistic "making" is informed by a vivid evidence of a serious self-making, soul-making, and heart-making' - Li-Young Lee.