‘His versions are unyielding in their consistency, and the poet-translator has succeeded in finding an apt literary voice for a well-curated collection of poems… I recommend reading A Broken Man in Flower not only for its mesmerizing formalist strength and ingenuity, but for its profound importance as a document of courage and resistance against a brutally repressive regime, a testament to the quiet yet formidable might contained in the poet’s verse. In the shrunken world of the individual under both confinement and the microscope of surveillance, we watch as time cinematically slows down, and man becomes his own sole companion.’ - Suzana Vuljevic, Words Without Borders
‘This intimate record of thoughts, emotions, hopes, fears, the ‘intensity of vision’ under extreme conditions is historically important and will illuminate studies in different areas of the curriculum.’ – Frank Startup, The School Librarian, on A Broken Man in Flower
‘Harsent’s A Broken Man in Flower presents poems from multiple series written during Ritsos’s years of arrest … Ritsos was prolific, and there is a good selection here of poems about the terror of oppression and the misuse of power.’ – Evan Jones, Times Literary Supplement
‘The meaning and gravity of the work unfolds incrementally … Harsent certainly captures something vital and lasting about the work…' - Chris Davis, Morning Star
'These are "versions" of Ritsos by a major English poet. Yannis Ritsos, one of the most celebrated Greek poets of the 20th century, has at last found a "companion translator" up to the task. The work that is experimental and revolutionary in Greek is experimental and revolutionary in English. Ritsos's output is enormous, his life heroic and eventful, his voice an embodiment of national courage.' — The Times Literary Supplement, on David Harsent's In Secret
'[Ritsos] records, at times celebrates, the enigmatic, the irrational, the mysterious and invisible qualities of experience.' – The New York Times Book Review, on David Harsent's In Secret
'David Harsent’s versions of the great Greek poet Yannis Ritsos make superb English poems. I can’t recommend them too warmly. They’re well complemented by an introduction by Harsent’s Greek-speaking collaborator, John Kittmer, that sets them in the context of Ritsos’s experiences under the dreadful Papadopoulos regime, and by a moving long letter Ritsos wrote to his publisher from house arrest on Samos ... [a] remarkable book.' – Edmund Prestwich, London Grip
