The great Russian poet became a master of the English language in his long American exile: these essays evoke his youth in post-WW2 Leningrad with memorable portraits of his parents, in whom he sees the personification of the mute suffering of the Russian people in the last century. He also writes with feeling, precision and intelligence about Auden, Akhmatova, Mandelstam, Cavafy and others as well as on the broader themes of tyranny and civilisation.
