The Guest from the Future - Paperback

by Jon Stallworthy (Editor), Anna Andreevna Akhmatova (Author)

It represents what Seamus Heaney, the Nobel Laureate in literature, called art's power of "redress." Stallworthy's poems evoke women survivors; the poet Anna Akhmatova; the painter Francoise Cilot, Picasso's lover; a survivor of the siege of Stalingrad; and a woman who escaped war torn Poland, carrying in her bedding-roll a coverlet she was embroidering for her fiance and herself. This refugee's story bears a curious inverse relationship with that of the "Lady of Shalott" Tennyson's patrician artist in her tower, forced to choose between the world and its "shadows" in her mirror opts for the world and is destroyed; Stallworthy's peasant artist engages with the world and is sustained by an art that reflects that engagement.

Back Jacket

An old friend told Jon Stallworthy of her flight from war-torn Poland, carrying in her bedding-roll a coverlet she was embroidering for her fiance and herself. Her story bears a curious inverse relationship with that of the 'Lady of Shalott.' Tennysons's patrician artist in her tower, forced to choose between the world and its 'shadows' in her mirror, opts for the world and is destroyed; the peasant artist engages with the world and is sustained by an art that reflects that engagement. The modern story Stallworthy traces over the ghostly outline of the old points a parable about one function of art, what Seamus Heaney calls its power of 'redress', in this or any time.