Bloomsbury Academic Joseph Brodsky and Collaborative Self-Translation

Joseph Brodsky and Collaborative Self-Translation examines how the Nobel Prize winning Russian poet Joseph Brodsky mastered English as his second language and became the 5th Poet Laureate of the United States. In 1972, Brodsky was banished from Soviet Russia. Upon his arrival in the USA, the 32 year old poets English was still poor but, only a few years later, he felt confident enough to self-translate his Russian poems. Based on the archival study of Brodskys manuscripts and correspondence, held at the Brodsky archive in the Beinecke library at Yale University, Rulyova follows Brodskys bilingual journey stage by stage. In doing so, she shows how, as a late bilingual, Brodskys success was dependent on collaboration with his network of translators, editors and peer poets whose loyal and relentless support helped him to become a recognised American poet, in addition to being, arguably, the most celebrated Russian poet of the 20th century.