Even Now: Poems by Hugo Claus [Paperback]

Beautifully translated from the Dutch by David Colmer, the IMPAC Award-winning translator of Gerbrand Bakker’s The Twin, Hugo Claus’s poems are remarkable for their dexterity, intensity of feeling, and acute intelligence. From the richly associative and referential “Oostakker Poems” to the emotional and erotic outpouring of the “mad dog stanzas” in “Morning, You,” from his interpretations of Shakespeare’s sonnets to a modern adaptation of a Sanskrit masterpiece, this volume reveals the breadth and depth of Claus’s stunning output. Perhaps Belgium’s leading figure of postwar Dutch literature, Claus has long been associated with the avant-garde: these poems challenge conventional bourgeois mores, religious bigotry, and authoritarianism with visceral passion.Finalist for 2014 PEN Literary Award for Poetry in Translation

[Hugo Claus is] one of Belgium's most prolific, versatile and lauded authors of the twentieth century. . . Colmer strikes me as an ideal translator, capturing the original while at the same time possessing great sensitivity to the music of poetry in English. . . If this selection is a good indication of the rest of Claus's oeuvre, I hope Colmer considers translating the other 1200 Pages. — Kathryn Maris, Modern Poetry Translation

“Astonishing. There is a richness of feeling, exactness of imagery, tender skepticism of the body and its wants—I found myself thinking of Donne, Sterne, Cendrars, Bukowski, and Céline all at once. Colmer’s translation is uncanny, feels as if every word is the one the poet intended. Yes, here it is! Hugo Claus, a permanent part of our poetic landscape, opened at last.&rdqulã§