Wood, Antony

Antony Wood is one of the very few translators who can bring Pushkin authentically alive in English. If, as The Tablet has said, he "comes close to the translator's ideal," so Simon Brett comes close to the illustrator's. This well-known engraver has captured the essence of each of these poems in a single dramatic image, from the firelight reverie of the title poem to the grisly action of "The Bridegroom." The Gypsies is a double masterpiece: a masterly translation of Pushkin for today and a triumph of the illustrator's art.

Antony Wood is publisher of Angel Books, London. His previous tra...