Old Songs

“Olga Sedakova is a writer of global significance. . .the publishing ofthis collection is a welcome stage in the reception of her exceptional geniusin the West.” So writes Rowan Williams in his foreword to this translation of Old Songs. . Born in Moscow in 1949 OlgaSedakova emerged as a leading writer of the late Soviet period. Since 2014 shehas been an outspoken critic of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Her writing bearswitness to the values of generosity attention and non-violence. The poems in OldSongs construct a world shaped by these values forming a lyric sequenceinfused with folk wisdom and anchored in moral courage. It is a world broughtinto being by song the kind passed down over cradles and on walks through thegarden. These poems find their way into your memory and accompany you on yourway..  . Sedakova is not only one ofRussia’s most revered contemporary poets but also a scholar and essayist. Oftencompared to figures such as Czes?aw Mi?osz she haswith this volume (according to Rowan Williams) succeeded in “conveying thesense of a forgotten directness of perception and relation—not a lostsimplicity exactly but a larger and more human world. . . .”