War of the Beasts and the Animals

'Stepanova's poetry is porous. Were it a fabric, it would be complete with rents through which darkness - and truth - might leak... Stepanova is a powerhouse. Her scornful wit is bracing and, throughout, the reader is on a switchback: you never know what waits around the next bend.' - Kate Kellaway, The Observer, Poetry Book of the Month(on War of the Beasts and the Animals)

'Like T.S. Eliot or Ezra Pound, Stepanova allows a multitude of voices to speak through her lines... Poetry and the study of literature have potential to open borders between the living and the dead, and between cultures; to speak "as if respect, compassion, goodness have not lost their their meaning".' - Rachel Polonsky, Times Literary Supplement

'Stepanova has long been a major force in Russian literature and now, with Sasha Dugdale’s translations of her prose, the International Booker-shortlisted In Memory of Memory, and poetry, War of the Beasts and the Animals, Anglophone readers are finally catching up.' – Tom Jeffreys, The Guardian

'... Dugdale has channelled a force of nature into English. War of the Beasts and the Animals is pure energy, dynamic and unstoppable, a call to protest by an emotional archivist. Entrenched in mythology and folksong, supported by research with a political message, with Tolstoy, Mayakovski, Whitman, and T.S. Eliot simmering below, what arises is a swirling collage of images that scroll past lightning fast with the reader left crawling around on the floor looking their lost dropped jaw... If you want to relive that moment when you first discovered Akhmatova, Ginsberg, Angelou, Silverstein, or Plath―that sense of inner revolution, that lift of possibility, that melody which keeps evil away―read Stepanova, because the next generations will.' - D M O'Connor, RHINO Poetry

'This is the year of Maria Stepanova. A translated collection of her long, densely allusive, political poems, War of the Beasts and the Animals, was published in March to much acclaim... Her poems...have the immediacy and intimacy of a photograph, brought to life by the intensity of her language.' - Aviva Dautch, Jewish Renaissance

'The collection opens with two long poems; 'Spolia' and 'War of the Beasts and the Animals'. Similar in form, they are both chaotic and deeply layered. In both poems, Stepanova sifts through language, culture and identity in an attempt to make sense of them all. She reaches no conclusions, but something fascinating is revealed in the attempt. In her poetry, Russia is a country torn apart and remade line by line, a patchwork of truth, myth and dogma stitched together with shreds of memory.' --Ellie Julings, DURA (Dundee University Review of the Arts)

'...2021 is the year of Stepanova: in addition to In Memory of Memory, her poetry collection War of the Beasts and the Animals, and a collection of essays and poems titled The Voice Over, will also be published in English this year... Stepanova's poetry collection War of the Beasts and the Animals was written in 2014 and 2015, during Russia's conflict with Ukraine... What emerges is another archive of sorts, a home for language's changing and motley complexion.' - Matthew Janney, The Guardian [in his profile of Maria Stepanova]

'The slipperiness of history and the improvisational quality of historical thinking are hallmarks of her work, which will likely resonate with new audiences in the United States, riven by racism and culture war skirmishes, and in a Britain still reeling from Brexit.' - Jennifer Wilson, Poetry magazine [on the poetry & prose of Maria Stepanova]

'With the publication of three of her books in English this year, Stepanova is finally receiving the attention she deserves in the Anglophone world. Subtle and erudite in its treatment of politics and history, her work is a much-needed antidote to the crude depictions of Russia that have filled the English-language media in recent years... Stepanova produced two long poems - 'War of the Beasts and the Animals' and 'Spolia' - that explore war and peace, public and private memory, and the violent fragmentation of language and attempts to salvage it... Together, the poems offer an unparalleled depiction of the flattening of time and violent instrumentalization of history and language in contemporary Russia.' --Sophie Pinkham, Harper's Magazine

'Wildly experimental, and yet movingly traditional. Ironic, and yet obsessed with spell-making. Full of allusions to various different canonical voices, and yet heart-wrenchingly direct. What, friends, is this? It's that glorious thing: the poetry of Maria Stepanova.' --Ilya Kaminsky, Poetry Book Society Selector, on War of the Beasts and the Animals, his Translation Choice for Spring 2021

‘… the collection couldn’t be more prescient in the urgency with which it speaks to this particular moment… a tour de force introduction to Maria Stepanova’s urgently political poetry.’ – Dzifa Benson, Modern Poetry in Translation, on War of the Beasts and the Animals

‘The writer I translate, Maria Stepanova, who wrote the prose book In Memory of Memory, has a poetry collection which is in English translation called War of the Beasts and the Animals, and the title poem for this collection was written as the war in Donbas started. It’s really about the way that culture enables a people to turn into an aggressor… I think it’s a really important text for our time.’ – Sasha Dugdale, speaking on Radio 4’s Open Book