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Yevtushenko: Selected Poems
Yevtushenko: Selected Poems
Feb 14, 2026 11:31 AM

Author:Yevgeny Yevtushenko,Robin Milner-Gulland,Peter Levi,Robin Milner-Gulland

Yevtushenko: Selected Poems

This volume contains a selection of early works by Yevgeny Alexandrovich Yevtushenko who blazed a trail for a generation of Soviet poets with a confident poetic voice that moves effortlessly between social and personal themes. ‘Zima Junction’ vividly describes his idyllic childhood in Siberia and his impressions of home after a long absence in Moscow. Private moments are captured in ‘Waking’, on the joys of discovering the unexpected in a lover, and ‘Birthday’, on a mother’s concern for her son, while ‘Encounter’ depicts an unexpected meeting with Hemingway in Copenhagen. ‘The Companion’ and ‘Party Card’ show war from a child’s eye, whether playing while oblivious to German bombs falling nearby or discovering a fatally wounded soldier in the forest, while Yevtushenko’s famous poem, ‘Babiy Yar’, is an angry exposé of the Nazi massacre of the Jews of Kiev.

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A flawlessly constructed mini-epic that will delight

—— Daily Telegraph

Nourishing fare from a fine writer on sparkling form

—— Daily Mail

Thoughtful and beautifully written

—— Woman and Home

Scorching and exhilarating

—— New York Post

The verbal sparring and violence of Albee's early masterpiece remain astonishing, even frightening, yet bitterly, horribly funny...a classic play

—— The Times

An extraordinary classic that still packs a punch

—— Independent on Sunday

A brilliantly original work of art

—— Newsweek

Wodicka is assured and original, and his wry and subtle prose is a pleasure throughout. Burt is a pathetic, frustrating and sympathetic creation, heartbroken and heartbreaking as he struggles to pull himself together for his children.

—— Observer

Wodicka is original and writes an efficient, precise prose

—— Irish Times

A wonderfully memorable protagonist... and an arresting narrative that manages to combine both tragedy and hilarity

—— The Bookseller

Funny... accomplished

—— Kamran Nazeer , Prospect

Boy is it fun to read All Shall Be Well...Traveling through Eastern Europe with Burt Hecker, aka Eckbert Attquiet, medieval re-enactor and mead-addled father, is a little like heading south with Charles Portis' Ray Midge or being holed up in the campgrounds with Nabokov's Charles Kinbote - uproarious, wholly odd, wonderfully rendered

—— Joshua Ferris

An astonishing, beautiful book. It's comic and compassionate, assured in tone and richly poetic. Best of all, it's so original, unfolding in brilliantly unexpected and entertaining ways. Easily among the very best novels - never mind debuts - that I've read in years.

—— Peter Hobbs, author of The Short Day Dying and I Could Ride All Day in My Cold Blue Train

Quite simply, the master of comic writing at work

—— Jane Moore

To pick up a Wodehouse novel is to find oneself in the presence of genius - no writer has ever given me so much pure enjoyment

—— John Julius Norwich

Compulsory reading for anyone who has a pig, an aunt - or a sense of humour!

—— Lindsey Davis

The Wodehouse wit should be registered at Police HQ as a chemical weapon

—— Kathy Lette

Witty and effortlessly fluid. His books are laugh-out-loud funny

—— Arabella Weir

The funniest writer ever to put words to paper

—— Hugh Laurie

The greatest comic writer ever

—— Douglas Adams

P.G. Wodehouse wrote the best English comic novels of the century

—— Sebastian Faulks

Sublime comic genius

—— Ben Elton
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