The Paradise for Clouds

Vladimir Zakharov is the author of several books of poetry and the winner of two literary prizes; his works regularly appear in prestigious Russian periodicals. When not writing poetry, he works as a theoretical physicist. In this capacity Zakharov is Regents' Professor at the University of Arizona and a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Several equations, theories and effects bear his name. Asteroid 7153 Vladzakharov orbits the Sun every 3.6 years. This is the first collection of Vladimir Zakharov's poetry to be published in an English translation. The selected works, written over a period of some 40 years, address the predicament of a renaissance-type intellectual caught up in the modern world and reflect upon the inevitability of death. All translations in this bilingual book are congruent: that is, they aim to preserve not only the key imagery but also the poetic form of the originals, allowing Anglophone readers to appreciate the works of Vladimir Zakharov on their own terms, complete with the distinctive formal features described in the editor's afterword.