Carcanet Press

Description
Author
Awards
Reviews

A collection of dark, funny Iberian poems about drinking, sex and death.

Manuel Vilas speaks in the voice of bitter experience, experience which seems intent on sending him up. He is a novelist as well as a poet, and his poems tell stories as the speaker moves quixotically across the map and between romances. His instinct for rhythm gives the reader a firm sense of place and tone. Universal in their concerns, taking in love and the end of love, life and the end of life, the poems are also resolutely Spanish in how they speak - bluntly, humorously - always alert for the fantastic.

This is the first translation of Vilas's two major collections Heaven (El cielo, 2000) and Heat (Calor, 2008) into English. Thematically fuelled with alcohol, death and sex, they go off into free-wheeling megalomaniacal flights of fantasy. The translator, James Womack, has won prizes for his versions of Vilas and of the Russian poet Mayakovsky.

Manuel Vilas

Manuel Vilas is a Spanish writer, the author of several books, including fourteen collections of poetry, seven books of essays, and seven novels. His most recent novel, Alegría, was the 2019 Premio Planeta Finalista, and its predecessor, Ordesa, was a bestseller in Spain, won the French Prix Femina Étranger ... read more

James Womack

James Womack was born in Cambridge in 1979. He studied Russian, English and translation at university, and received his doctorate, on W.H. Auden's translations, in 2006. After ten years in Madrid, he has recently returned to the UK, where he teaches Spanish and translation at Cambridge University. He is a freelance ... read more

Awards won by James Womack Short-listed, 2019 The Ledbury Forte Poetry Prize for Second Collections
(On Trust ) Long-listed, 2018 The International Dylan Thomas Prize (On Trust ) Long-listed, 2018 Read Russia Prize (Vladimir Mayakovsky)

'Vilas is an accomplished, freewheeling storyteller, forever leading his readers into unexpected byways...James Womack's translations of these beguiling narrative poems, selected from two of Vilas' collections published in 2000 and 2008, are so vivid, natural-seeming and alert to every nuance and shade of feeling that they scarcely register as translations at all.'
Paul Bailey, Literary Review
'James Womack's translations are immaculate distillations of Vilas... Vilas' poems are long and decadent affairs, euphoric tales of drunken debauchery told through a first person narrative.'
Charlie Baylis, Stride Magazine
'Vilas is an accomplished, freewheeling storyteller, forever leading his readers into unexpected byways...James Womack's translations of these beguiling narrative poems, selected from two of Vilas' collections published in 2000 and 2008, are so vivid, natural-seeming and alert to every nuance and shade of feeling that they scarcely register as translations at all.'
Paul Bailey, Literary Review
'witty, nuanced, urbane'

Clark Allison, Stride Magazine

Praise for James Womack 'True to its title, On Trust: A Book of Lies explores the metamorphic landscapes of shifting allegiance and unstable epistemologies. Writing a cunning jazz line in one poem and a supple passage of lyric prose in the next, Womack matches limberness of method to his ambitious subject: the shifting instabilities of character, circumstance, and faith.'

Judges, Ledbury Forte Poetry Prize for Second Collections

'This is a gorgeous book. The reader will find it either a seductive introduction or a thrilling reunion. James Womack's translations are bristling with appropriate vigour.'
The Spokesman

In James Womack's 'book of lies', in the court of love and the erotic, where honesty may be a necessary contrivance, the speaker is both accuser and accused. The poems display a wry, mordant romanticism which manages to be at war with itself while keeping a keen eye on the imaginative opportunities. On Trust is a witty, eloquent, troubling collection.'
Sean O'Brien 'The first half of On Trust is about a love affair, which is true to all the stumbles of falling in love. An actual affair? Or a vivid thought-experiment? It is both and neither. It is Schrödinger's pussy. It is and it isn't. 'In your park, the wind pushes at an empty swing.' Inventive, clever, funny, rueful, ironic, hypnotised by the erotic.'
Craig Raine 'Technically adept, self-consciously ironic, and provocative about the nature of art and the role of the artist... Often I felt as if I was being taken aside and told a joke that's ridiculously funny at the same time as being deadly serious. '
Heidi Williamson, Eyewear 'James Womack is another bright young poet... he is capable of lugubrious comic inventions such as 'From the Literary Encyclopaedia', which charts an experimental novelist's doomed career, alongside 'Tourism', a clipped and chilly poem about the export of jihadis to the Middle East... on the evidence of Misprint Womack has scope, curiosity and a refreshing sense of not having foresuffered everything he encounters.'
Sean O'Brien, The Sunday Times 'In 'Vladimir Mayakovsky' and Other Poems the poet James Womack has put together the comprehensive selection of Mayakovsky's poems I have long been waiting for. His fresh translation allows English readers to appreciate the non-aligned and passionate personality of the Russian poet. I recommend a few lines twice a day to protect against dry academic writing.'
The Times Higher Education Best Books of 2016

Quote of the Day It is impossible to imagine literary life in Britain without Carcanet. William Boyd Home Events Authors Titles Jubilee Bundles Paperback Hardback Limited Edition Journal CD eBook Audiobook Imprints Anvil Press Poetry Aspects of Portugal Audio Books Carcanet Classics Carcanet Fiction Carcanet Film Carcanet Poetry FyfieldBooks Lintott Press Little Island Press Lives and Letters Northern House OxfordPoets PN Review Sheep Meadow Press Information About Us Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! Academic Enquiries Authors For Events Catalogue Contact Us Copyright and Permissions Join Our Mailing List Opportunities at Carcanet Press Enquiries PN Review PN Review Creative Writing Prize Returns Policy Shopping Guide Stocklist Submission Guidelines Trade Information Resources Audio Gallery Reading Group Guides Video
Book Search Search > advanced search Subscribe to our mailing list
Heaven Manuel Vilas Translated by James Womack RRP: GBP 12.99 Discount: 10% You Save: GBP 1.30 Price: GBP 11.69 New Release Available This title is available for academic inspection (paperback only). Paperback ISBN: 978 1 784108 86 1 Categories: 21st Century, Humour, Spanish and Catalan, Translation Imprint: Carcanet Poetry Published: January 2020 216 x 135 x 9 mm 112 pages Publisher: Carcanet Press Also available in: eBook (Kindle), eBook (EPUB), eBook (PDF) Spend GBP 15 or more and receive a free Carcanet tote bag. Available internationally while stocks last. Find out more. Description Author Awards Reviews A collection of dark, funny Iberian poems about drinking, sex and death. Manuel Vilas speaks in the voice of bitter experience, experience which seems intent on sending him up. He is a novelist as well as a poet, and his poems tell stories as the speaker moves quixotically across the map and between romances. His instinct for rhythm gives the reader a firm sense of place and tone. Universal in their concerns, taking in love and the end of love, life and the end of life, the poems are also resolutely Spanish in how they speak - bluntly, humorously - always alert for the fantastic. This is the first translation of Vilas's two major collections Heaven (El cielo, 2000) and Heat (Calor, 2008) into English. Thematically fuelled with alcohol, death and sex, they go off into free-wheeling megalomaniacal flights of fantasy. The translator, James Womack, has won prizes for his versions of Vilas and of the Russian poet Mayakovsky. Manuel Vilas Manuel Vilas is a Spanish writer, the author of several books, including fourteen collections of poetry, seven books of essays, and seven novels. His most recent novel, Alegría, was the 2019 Premio Planeta Finalista, and its predecessor, Ordesa, was a bestseller in Spain, won the French Prix Femina Étranger ... read more James Womack James Womack was born in Cambridge in 1979. He studied Russian, English and translation at university, and received his doctorate, on W.H. Auden's translations, in 2006. After ten years in Madrid, he has recently returned to the UK, where he teaches Spanish and translation at Cambridge University. He is a freelance ... read more Awards won by James Womack Short-listed, 2019 The Ledbury Forte Poetry Prize for Second Collections (On Trust ) Long-listed, 2018 The International Dylan Thomas Prize (On Trust ) Long-listed, 2018 Read Russia Prize (Vladimir Mayakovsky) 'Vilas is an accomplished, freewheeling storyteller, forever leading his readers into unexpected byways...James Womack's translations of these beguiling narrative poems, selected from two of Vilas' collections published in 2000 and 2008, are so vivid, natural-seeming and alert to every nuance and shade of feeling that they scarcely register as translations at all.' Paul Bailey, Literary Review 'James Womack's translations are immaculate distillations of Vilas... Vilas' poems are long and decadent affairs, euphoric tales of drunken debauchery told through a first person narrative.' Charlie Baylis, Stride Magazine 'Vilas is an accomplished, freewheeling storyteller, forever leading his readers into unexpected byways...James Womack's translations of these beguiling narrative poems, selected from two of Vilas' collections published in 2000 and 2008, are so vivid, natural-seeming and alert to every nuance and shade of feeling that they scarcely register as translations at all.' Paul Bailey, Literary Review 'witty, nuanced, urbane' Clark Allison, Stride Magazine Praise for James Womack 'True to its title, On Trust: A Book of Lies explores the metamorphic landscapes of shifting allegiance and unstable epistemologies. Writing a cunning jazz line in one poem and a supple passage of lyric prose in the next, Womack matches limberness of method to his ambitious subject: the shifting instabilities of character, circumstance, and faith.' Judges, Ledbury Forte Poetry Prize for Second Collections 'This is a gorgeous book. The reader will find it either a seductive introduction or a thrilling reunion. James Womack's translations are bristling with appropriate vigour.' The Spokesman In James Womack's 'book of lies', in the court of love and the erotic, where honesty may be a necessary contrivance, the speaker is both accuser and accused. The poems display a wry, mordant romanticism which manages to be at war with itself while keeping a keen eye on the imaginative opportunities. On Trust is a witty, eloquent, troubling collection.' Sean O'Brien 'The first half of On Trust is about a love affair, which is true to all the stumbles of falling in love. An actual affair? Or a vivid thought-experiment? It is both and neither. It is Schrödinger's pussy. It is and it isn't. 'In your park, the wind pushes at an empty swing.' Inventive, clever, funny, rueful, ironic, hypnotised by the erotic.' Craig Raine 'Technically adept, self-consciously ironic, and provocative about the nature of art and the role of the artist... Often I felt as if I was being taken aside and told a joke that's ridiculously funny at the same time as being deadly serious. ' Heidi Williamson, Eyewear 'James Womack is another bright young poet... he is capable of lugubrious comic inventions such as 'From the Literary Encyclopaedia', which charts an experimental novelist's doomed career, alongside 'Tourism', a clipped and chilly poem about the export of jihadis to the Middle East... on the evidence of Misprint Womack has scope, curiosity and a refreshing sense of not having foresuffered everything he encounters.' Sean O'Brien, The Sunday Times 'In 'Vladimir Mayakovsky' and Other Poems the poet James Womack has put together the comprehensive selection of Mayakovsky's poems I have long been waiting for. His fresh translation allows English readers to appreciate the non-aligned and passionate personality of the Russian poet. I recommend a few lines twice a day to protect against dry academic writing.' The Times Higher Education Best Books of 2016	Share this... Quick Links Jubilee Bundles Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! Anvil Press Poetry Aspects of Portugal Audio Books Carcanet Classics Carcanet Fiction Carcanet Film Carcanet Poetry FyfieldBooks Lintott Press Little Island Press Lives and Letters OxfordPoets PN Review Sheep Meadow Press The Carcanet Blog Songs We Learn From Trees: Chris Beckett read more Carcanet and Covid-19 read more PN Review 252: Editorial read more Happy International Women's Day 2020! read more Angular Desire: Graziano Krtli read more Riddle Me: John Gallas read more
We thank the Arts Council England for their support and assistance in this interactive Project.
Privacy Statement Free Gift Terms & Conditions Sitemap RSS Feeds Home Events Authors Titles Imprints Information Resources This website ©2000-2020 Carcanet Press Ltd

Heaven

Manuel Vilas

Translated by James Womack