Simon Patten

Originally published in French in 1939, Coup de Grâce is a subtle book, ‘a human, not political, document’ written with absolute assurance and remarkable skill. That the book is filled with a disturbing inhumanity portrayed (without irony) as nobility, makes it a disturbing experience for the contemporary reader. ... (read more)

This collection is an eclectic one. John A. Scott includes translations from Apollinaire, Ovid, John Clare (a translation from prose) and a little-known contemporary French poet by the name of Emmanuel Hocquard, together with a selection of his own work. This at first dauntingly disparate group appears to be united by the myth of Apollo’s son Orpheus in which creativity and the absence of the be ... (read more)