Ana Blandiana Launch Events
The Shadow of Words, published by Bloodaxe in February 2025, covers Romanian poet Ana Blandiana’s early collections published from 1964 to 1981, during the brief period of political thaw of Romania’s communist regime, and includes uncollected poems from that period which only appeared in anthologies. In these poems aestheticism takes on a subversive role, reaffirming the autonomy of the poetic word and freeing it from the stultifying demands of propagandist proletarian art. This collection follows My Native Land A4 (2014), The Sun of Hereafter • Ebb of the Senses (2017) and Five Books (2021), completing Bloodaxe’s presentation of Blandiana’s collected poems to date in English translation. All four books were translated into English by Paul Scott Derrick and Viorica Patea.
Ana Blandiana is one of Romania’s foremost poets, a leading dissident before the fall of Communism, and now one of her country’s strongest candidates for the Nobel Prize. A prominent opponent of the Ceaușescu regime, Blandiana became known for her daring, outspoken poems as well as for her courageous defence of ethical values. Over the years, her works have become the symbol of a moral consciousness that refuses to be silenced by a totalitarian government. She received the Griffin Trust’s Lifetime Recognition Award in 2018, and is the recipient of the 2024 Princess of Asturias Award for Literature.
The Shadow of Words was launched in person on 11 March 2025 at the Romanian Cultural Institute, London. Ana Blandiana and her translator Viorica Patea were reading from the book in Romanian and English, and were in conversation with Fiona Sampson. Introduced by Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley. This event was the highlight of Romania’s participation in the London Book Fair. Scroll down to see a video of Ana and Viorica reading together in 2014, and for a video of Bloodaxe's joint online launch event with Ana and both her translators.
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‘Romanian author and political activist Blandiana enthralls in this anthology of her early work. Fidelity to truth, ethical inquiry, union with nature, and the ubiquity of the soul underscore narratives that resuscitate awe and riot against passivity […] With nonpareil enlightenment, valor, and spectral beauty, Blandiana’s visions make an indelible impression.’ – Publishers Weekly, starred review of The Shadow of Words
Read the full review here.
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ONLINE LAUNCH READING
Wendesday 12 February 2025, 7pm
Online launch reading by Ana Blandiana, Krisztina Tóth & Charlotte Van den Broeck with their translators
We were joined online by Ana Blandiana, Krisztina Tóth, Charlotte Van den Broeck and their translators Paul Scott Derrick, Viorica Patea, George Szirtes and David Colmer for our February 2025 launch event. All three poets and their translators celebrated the publication of their books by reading live and discussing their work with one another and the host, Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley.
This multilingual Bloodaxe launch event was streamed on YouTube Live and is now available to watch below or here: https://www.youtube.com/live/SiYFLYPrR74.
Ana Blandiana: My Native Land A4
When Ana Blandiana was in London in 2014 for Poetry International at the Southbank Centre, the Romanian Cultural Institute kindly offered the use of a function room for us to film Ana Blandiana reading from My Native Land A4 with Viorica Patea. The excerpt from that reading shown in the film ends with a virtuoso performance by poet and translator of the poem which gives the book its title, ‘Country of Unease’ (‘Patria neliniştii’) read simultaneously in both languages. Ana Blandiana returned to London in 2015 to give a public reading from the book in the same room at the Institute. Before that they read three other poems: ‘Prayer’ (‘Rugăciune’), ‘Above the River’ (‘Deasupra râului’) and ‘A Transparent Being’ (‘Un personaj transparent’). This film is one of 60 videos included in the DVD-anthology In Person: World Poets, filmed and edited by Pamela Robertson-Pearce and Neil Astley (Bloodaxe Books, May 2017).
[06 February 2025]
