Selected Translations

"Mr. Merwin is an undisputed master."--The New York Times

"This collection of W. S. Merwin's translations is a deeply worthy book, beautifully produced, and meant to last as a physical object and cultural offering... What a fabulous book of poetry."-- World Literature Today

"Selected Translations is amazing in scope, mastery, themes, artistry, imagination: a testimony to a life time of consequential work."-- Three Percent

"Were Merwin not one of America's most admired poets (his honors include two Pulitzers and a term as U.S. Poet Laureate) he would still be as famous as translators get."-- Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Merwin writes that the act of translation is 'plainly impossible and nevertheless indispensable.' We can be grateful that he feels compelled to master the impossible. . . . And that gift alone is priceless."-- The Wichita Eagle

"An absorbing experience that resonates with a multitude of cultural viewpoints and traditions, spanning centuries of human history. An astonishing tour de force of profound yet essentially timeless poetry."-- Midwest Book Review

Selected Translations is the lifework from one of America's greatest poets and translators. Dedicated to the art of translation since his undergraduate years at Princeton, Poet Laureate W.S. Merwin achieved an unmatched oeuvre of translated poems from every corner of the earth, from dozens of languages. This massive achievement is an essential volume for every library, public and private.

From "In Praise of Darkness":

Translated from the Spanish of Jorge Luis Borges

Old age (as others refer to it)

can be the season of our good fortune.

The animal has died, all but the dying.

What remains is the man and his spirit.

I live among vague luminous shapes

that have not yet become darkness . . .

W.S. Merwin was US Poet Laureate from 2010-2011. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry twice, most recently for The Shadow of Sirius (Copper Canyon Press, 2009), and the National Book Award for Migration: New and Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2005). Author and translator of over fifty books, Merwin lives in Hawaii and France.