Watermark (FSG Classics)

In this brief, intense, gemlike book, equal parts extended autobiographical essay and prose poem, Joseph Brodsky turns his eye to the seductive and enigmatic city of Venice, where he spent his winters for nearly twenty years. A mosaic of forty-eight short chapters, each recalling a specific episode from one of his many visits there, Watermark brilliantly evokes the city's architectural and atmospheric character.

Brodsky writes in Watermark that water "stores our reflections for when we are long gone." This reissued edition of one of Brodsky's most important book, marking the late Nobel laureate's eightieth birthday, allows the reader to visit the canals of Venice and to see reflected in their waters the writer himself.