I discovered the works of Pushkin quite late. I had never heard of him until a Russian co-worker some years back gave me a small booklet of his poem when she heard me say off handedly that I like reading poetry. She didn’t realize that when I said that, the extent of my knowledge of poetry only extended to Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s love poems. So when she gave me the book, I was awed and had to sheepishly admit my limited knowledge. She just laughed and she said, then Pushkin is perfect for you. You don’t have to be a scholar to understand him, everyday people in Russia, regular people, read him”.
 
So when I had an opportunity to receive a copy of My Talisman to review, I jumped at the chance! I wouldn’t say that this book is an easy read like the other books I normally read. This book is the kind to be savored and absorbed slowly. I loved reading and learning more about Pushkin and the poems, which are published both in Russian and English translation, are a joy read. I also liked the added information from the author, Lowenfeld, about the process of translating poetry and how, if the translator is not vigilant of the original author’s intent, that the essence is lost.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR (from the author’s website: http://lowenfeld.com/):
 

Julian Henry Lowenfeld is the great-grandson of Raphael Löwenfeld, the first translator of Leo Tolstoy’s works into German. (Vladimir Nabokov first began writing poems and short stories under the pseudonym V. Sirin during the year he lived in Löwenfeld’s home in Berlin).
 
Lowenfeld majored in Russian literature at Harvard University and continued his studies first as an exchange student in Leningrad State University, and later independently with the renowned Pushkin scholar Nadyezhda Braginskaya. He has lectured to popular acclaim at the famous Pushkinsky Dom (Institute of Russian Literature), and the Museum of Pushkin’s Last Residence on Moika 12, in St. Petersburg, at Pushkin State Museum in Moscow, at the United Nations, the Pushkin House in London, England, the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., Columbia University, Lehigh University, various branches of the New York Public Library and Boston Public Library, the Donnell Arts Center, the Voice of America, BBC Russian World Service, Kanal Kultura, most of the major Russian television channels, and numerous other venues.
 
In November 2009, BARYSHNIKOV ARTS CENTER, New York city, featured a world premiere in English of Pushkin’s “Little Tragedies” in verse translation by Julian Henry Lowenfeld which has been praised as “brilliant” by leading authorities in both Russia and the United States, including such major scholars as V.E. Bagno, director of the Pushkin House in the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg; E.A. Bogatyrev, Director of the of the State Museum of Alexander Pushkin in Moscow; Pushkin Prize winner Professor V.S. Nepomnyashchiy; Academician S.A Fomichev; as well as professors of Columbia, Princeton, Harvard, Pennsylvania State, and Lehigh Universities.
 
Lowenfeld was awarded Russia’s prestigious “Petropol” and “Peacemaker” prizes for his book My Talisman, featuring translations of beloved lyrics and a lively biography of Russia’s beloved national bard.
 

ABOUT THE BOOK

My Talisman: The Poetry and Life of Alexander Pushkin (bi-lingual edition Russian-English)
 

As Shakespeare is the quintessential poet of the English language, Goethe is the national bard of Germany, and Dante is the national poet of Italy, so Pushkin is the quintessential expression of the famously unique Russian soul, universally beloved by Russians for over 200 years as “the sunshine of Russian poetry.” Pushkin is at the very heart of Russian culture.
 
Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, and Nabokov, (the Russian literary geniuses best known in the West) all have revered Pushkin and acknowledged themselves his literary heirs. To Gogol, “Pushkin was an extraordinary phenomenon, perhaps the only true expression of the essential Russian spirit”; to Dostoyevsky, Pushkin was “the height of artistic perfection.” Tolstoy praised Chekhov by calling him “Pushkin in prose” and urged young writers: “read and re-read Pushkin!” For Russian poets, a deep devotion to Pushkin is something almost akin to religion. Pushkin is the “Prophet” of Russian literature; countless phrases of his have entered the Russian language as Shakespeare’s phrases permeate English. Yet, while Russians revere Pushkin as English-speakers do Shakespeare, the West knows Pushkin far less well than it knows his literary heirs. The incomparable mastery of Pushkin’s verse has eluded translation, because few English-speaking poets have mastered Russian well enough to convey him with proper feeling.
 
Yet Pushkin (who was also indisputably the most colorful and romantic figure in Russian literary history) was also by far the most Western and European of all great Russian writers.
 
His works resonate with universal significance, for they eschew nationalism, religious preaching, and doctrine, and instead stress universal values such as love, joy, freedom, honor, and the preciousness of life, values that are as timelessly relevant and potent in 21st century America as they were in 19th century Russia.
 
My Talisman, The Life and Poetry of Alexander Pushkin brings the joy of Russia’s national bard to English-speakers. In a dual-language edition, handy for academic use, as well as for bilingual households, it contains over 120 of the most beloved poems of Alexander Pushkin, illustrated by approximately 180 of the poet’s own beautiful, extremely vivid drawings. The book also contains extensive excerpts from the universally acknowledged crown jewel of Russian literature, Eugene Onegin, Pushkin’s magnificent novel in verse, and a complete biography of the poet, whose life is a thrilling tale in its own right.
 

I received a free copy of this book to review. No other compensation was provided.