The Rest of the Voyage

Winner of the Robert Fagles Prize for contemporary poetry in translation

Eléna Rivera's translation of Bernard Noël's The Rest of the Voyage is at once original and remarkably faithful--indeed, its originality lies in the care and music the translator has brought to her commitment to follow Noël's forms as closely as possible. Rivera succeeds beautifully in setting the rhythms of the French original into English. The succession of poems has a fluency that becomes as mesmerizing as any mode of transport, for Rivera is remarkably adept at varying the lines, landing with emphasis or muting the effect as she follows the speed and light of Noël's themes.