Regina Derieva translation to be launched in Sweden

Regina Derieva's first volume of poems to be published in England, 'The Sum Total of Violations' will be launched in Sweden on Friday, February 6th at St. Eugenia's reading hall situated at Kungsträdgården 12 in central Stockholm.

St. Eugenia, founded in 1837, is Sweden's oldest and largest Catholic parish founded after the protestant reformation. Les Murray, Per Wästberg and Eva Lipska are among the poets who have given public talks or readings in this prestigious venue.

Regina Derieva is one of the leading contemporary Russian poets. Unusually she has strong affiliations with Swedish culture and with that of the Middle East, Israel and Palestine. Since she does not fit any particular category, her work is not perhaps as well known outside Russian as it ought to be, although it has received commendations from a number of prominent authors including the late Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky and the contemporary Australian poet, Les Murray, who writes: "Science teaches that eighty percent of the universe consists of dark matter, so called. Regina Derieva learned this same fact in a very hard school. She does not consent to it, though. She knows that the hurt truth in us points to a dimension where, for example, victory is cleansed of battle. Her strict, economical poems never waver from that orientation."

'The Sum Total of Violations' is a bilingual (Russian) edition translated by Daniel Weissbort.