MARILYN HACKER was born in New York, but now splits her time between New York, where she teaches at City College, and Paris. Her first collection, Presentation Piece, won the National Book Award. She is the author of eleven books, including Desesperanto (Norton, 2003) and Essays on Departure (Carcanet, 2006). She has translated many contemporary French poets, including Claire Malroux, Guy Goffette, Hédi Kaddour, and Vénus Khoury-Ghata.

CLAIRE MALROUX was born in the south of France, but now divides her time between Paris and Cabourg. She divides her efforts, similarly, between poetry and translation. She is the author of ten books of poems, most recently La Femme Sans Paroles (2006) and Suspens (2001) both published by Le Castor Astral. Chambre avec vue sur l'éternité, an imaginative study of Emily Dickinson, was published by Gallimard in 2005.


"The personal and universal cataclysms in Claire Malroux's poetry—a maelstrom of love, torment and sweetness—are viewed as though through the calm lens of a dream. All is surging, hushed, violently human. Marilyn Hacker's gifted translation captures the tone flawlessly."—John Ashbery

"In this braiding of autobiography and history, the distinguished French poet Claire Malroux depicts in marvelous and terrible concreteness the era of Nazism in France. . . We have Marilyn Hacker to thank for her intelligent and sensitive translation, and Sheep Meadow Press for this bilingual edition."—Adrienne Rich