Addio?
Vladimír Holan (1905-1980) was one of the greatest Czech poets of the twentieth century. His life is manifested in his “philosophical” and “metaphysical” poetry. As an opponent to Nazism, he became a member, for a while, of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party, but the regime was hostile towards him until the 1960s. After 1949, he withdrew from public life by secluding himself at his home on the island of Kampa in Prague. His isolation increased following the repression of 1968, but abroad, his fame grew more and more. The book “Addio?”, edited by Marco Ceriani and Vlasta Fesslová and prefaced by Giovanni Raboni, presents the poems – part of an overall translation project of Holan’s last works, started many years before under Raboni’s guidance. The work brings together writings from the poet’s three collections (“In progress”; “Penultimate”; “Goodbye?”), relative to the years 1943 to 1948 and 1968 to 1977, that represent the extreme ramification of that “foolish attempt” that for Holan was the achievement of “tonal harmony” in poetry.
Vladimír Holan,
Addio?,
Arcipelago Edizioni: Novara 2014,
683 pp.