Canvas, Zagajewski's second book to appear in English, features all of this poet's distinctive traits. In these sixty-one poems, syntax explodes, masses of detail spill from profuse catalogs, lines break in ways apt but unexpected, and compressed lyrics alternate with extended riffs. European culture is the poet's native province throughout these explorations, and time is a recurrent metaphysical concern.

The consistent wit and charm of Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) has often led to an underestimation of its value, yet there is now a growing recognition of his stature to which this biography will add. Admired for his fine songs and relgious works, he is perhaps best known for his humorous, insouciant pieces. From the freshness of his ballet Les Biches, composed for Diaghilev in 1924, to his ambitious 1956 opera, Dialogues des Carmelites, the author discusses Poulenc's work in the context of his homosexuality and against the colourful background of Paris in the first half of the century. His...

Magellania the region around the Strait of Magellan is the home of Kaw-djer, a mysterious man of Western origin whom the indigenous people consider a demigod. A man whose motto is Neither God nor master, he has shunned Western civilization and its hypocrisies in order to live peacefully on an island claimed by no one. But when a storm strands a thousand immigrants on his island and they ask him to be the leader of their colony, Kaw-djer must decide whether to help them live and prosper in this foreign land at the end of the world or leave them to their fate.
Jules Verne penned...