{"product_id":"9780374110031","title":"Beowulf: A New Translation","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eBeowulf: A New Translation\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor(s): Maria Dahvana Headley\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eLonglisted for the 2021 National Translation Award in Poetry. Picked for Kirkus Reviews’ Best Fiction in Translation of 2020. Named a Book of the Year by NPR, Vox, and \u003ci\u003eThe New Statesman\u003c\/i\u003e. Picked for Loyalty Books’ Holiday List. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA new, feminist translation of \u003ci\u003eBeowulf\u003c\/i\u003e by the author of the much-buzzed-about novel \u003ci\u003eThe Mere Wife\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eBrash and belligerent, lunatic and invigorating, with passages of  sublime poetry punctuated by obscenities and social-media shorthand.\" —\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eRuth Franklin, \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"The author of the crazy-cool Beowulf-inspired novel The Mere Wife tackles the Old English epic poem with a fierce new feminist translation that radically recontextualizes the tale.\" —\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eBarbara VanDenburgh, \u003ci\u003eUSA Today\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNearly twenty years after Seamus Heaney’s translation of \u003ci\u003eBeowulf\u003c\/i\u003e—and fifty years after the translation that continues to torment high-school students around the world—there is a radical new verse translation of the epic poem by Maria Dahvana Headley, which brings to light elements that have never before been translated into English, recontextualizing the binary narrative of monsters and heroes into a tale in which the two categories often entwine, justice is rarely served, and dragons live among us. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA man seeks to prove himself as a hero. A monster seeks silence in his territory. A warrior seeks to avenge her murdered son. A dragon ends it all. The familiar elements of the epic poem are seen with a novelist’s eye toward gender, genre, and history—\u003ci\u003eBeowulf \u003c\/i\u003ehas always been a tale of entitlement and encroachment, powerful men seeking to become more powerful, and one woman seeking justice for her child, but this version brings new context to an old story. While crafting her contemporary adaptation of \u003ci\u003eBeowulf\u003c\/i\u003e, Headley unearthed significant shifts lost over centuries of translation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReview(s):\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Maria Dahvana Headley's decision to make Beoulf a bro puts his macho bluster in a whole new light.\" —\u003cb\u003eAndrea Kannapell, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eBeowulf\u003c\/i\u003e is an ancient tale of men  battling monsters, but Headley has made it wholly modern, with language  as piercing and relevant as Kendrick Lamar's Pulitzer Prize-winning  album 'DAMN.' With scintillating inversions and her use of \u003ci\u003eau courant\u003c\/i\u003e idiom--the  poem begins with the word 'Bro!' and Queen Wealhtheow is 'hashtag:  blessed'--Headley asks one to consider not only present conflicts in  light of those of the past, but also the line between human and inhuman,  power and powerlessness, and the very nature of moral transformation,  the 'suspicion that at any moment a person might shift from hero into  howling wretch.'\" —\u003cb\u003eDanielle Trussoni, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[Headley's] narrator's tone is light and  suspenseful, resembling nothing so much as a man telling a long but  compelling story in a bar. That comparison isn't accidental . . .  [Headley's] \u003ci\u003eBeowulf \u003c\/i\u003eis a tragicomic epic about the things men do to impress one another. It's as fierce an examination of masculine weakness as \u003ci\u003eThe Mere Wife \u003c\/i\u003ewas of feminine strength.\"—\u003cb\u003eJo Livingstone, \u003ci\u003eThe Poetry Foundation\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[\u003ci\u003eThe Mere Wife\u003c\/i\u003e] includes some tantalizing snippets of \u003ci\u003eBeowulf\u003c\/i\u003e as translated by Headley. Now we have the full version, and it is  electrifying . . . It is brash and belligerent, lunatic and invigorating, with passages of sublime poetry punctuated by obscenities  and social-media shorthand.\" —\u003cb\u003eRuth Franklin, \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I have a lot of things to say about Maria Dahvana Headley's new book,  Beowulf . . . The first thing I need to tell you is that you have to read it now. No, I don't care if you've read Beowulf (the original)  before . . . I don't care what you think of when you think of Beowulf in any of its hundreds of other translations because this — this — version, Headley's version, is an entirely different thing. It is its own thing.\" —\u003cb\u003eJason Sheehan, NPR Books\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The new \u003ci\u003eBeowulf \u003c\/i\u003eis incredibly exciting from beginning to end!\" —\u003cb\u003eJason Furman, \u003ci\u003eHarvard University\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The new translation of \u003ci\u003eBeowulf \u003c\/i\u003eby Maria Dahavana Headley is the best thing I've read all fucking year\" -\u003cb\u003eMike Drucker, TV Writer and Comedian\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Enthralling,  scalding . . . Headley combines newly-wrought ancient kennings with US  street slang and lights up the women in the poem with unusual sympathy  (including Grendel's mother and the dragon). The thousand years and more  since these ferocious hatreds and battles were recorded dissolve: the  griefs and the rage are still all too present.\" - \u003cb\u003eMarina Warner, \u003ci\u003eThe New Statesman, Best Books of 2020\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Bold . . . Electrifying.\"—\u003cb\u003eRon Ch\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003earles, \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Finally, a \u003ci\u003eBeowulf \u003c\/i\u003etranslation that leaves us feeling 'hashtag: blessed.'\" -\u003cb\u003eAlena Smith, \u003ci\u003eSLATE\/Future Tense virtual event\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Maria Dahavana Headley's breathtakingly audacious and idiomatically rich \u003ci\u003eBeowulf:A New Translation \u003c\/i\u003eis a breath of iconoclastically fresh air blowing through the old tale's stuffy mead-hall atmosphere.\" -\u003cb\u003eMike Scroggins,\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHyperallergic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"Beowulf: A New Translation \u003c\/i\u003epulls \u003ci\u003eBeowulf \u003c\/i\u003einto  the fraught discourse on masculinity in the 21st century... Healdey's  choice of backward-hatterd beer-soaked vernacular has its origins in the  grandstanding language of the hero as we've always known him -- a  beefcake who wants to pull off such incredible feats that dudes will  hype his reputation for centuries to come.\" —\u003cb\u003eMiles Klee, \u003ci\u003eMEL Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This new translation of Beowulf brings the poem to profane, funny,  hot-blooded life . . . Lively and vigorous . . . I've never read a Beowulf that felt so immediate and so alive.\" —\u003cb\u003eConstance Grady,\u003ci\u003e Vox\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The author of the crazy-cool \u003ci\u003eBeowulf\u003c\/i\u003e-inspired novel \u003ci\u003eThe Mere Wife\u003c\/i\u003e tackles the Old English epic poem with a fierce new feminist translation that radically recontextualizes the tale.\"—\u003cb\u003eBarbara VanDenburgh, \u003ci\u003eUSA Today\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Of the four translations I’ve read, Headley’s is the most readable and engaging. She combines a modern poetry style with some of the hallmarks of Old English poetry, and the words practically sing off the page . . . Headley’s translation shows why it’s vital to have women and people from diverse backgrounds translate texts.\" —\u003cb\u003eMargaret Kingsbury, \u003ci\u003eBuzzfeed\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"An iconic work of early English literature comes in for up-to-the-minute treatment . . . From the very opening of the poem--'Bro!' in the place of the sturdy Saxon exhortation 'Hwaet'--you know this isn't your grandpappy's version of \u003ci\u003eBeowulf . . . \u003c\/i\u003eHeadley's language and pacing keep perfect track with the events she describes . . . [giving] the 3,182-line text immediacy without surrendering a bit of its grand poetry.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews (\u003c\/i\u003estarred)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Hooked from the first word . . . Headley's combination of alliteration, assonance, and consonance makes for verse that we can’t help but tap our feet and bob our heads to.\" \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e––Asymptote\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Headley brings a directness, intensity, and rhythm to her translation that I haven’t seen before. This is what it must have felt like to sit in a mead hall and listen to a scop tell the tale. Other translations may be more scholarly, literal, or true to the poetic form of the original, but it’s been a thousand years since Beowulf was this accessible or exciting.\" —\u003cb\u003eSteve Thomas, \u003ci\u003eThe Fantasy Hive\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Joy. That is the primary emotion I felt as I was reading Maria Dahvana Headley's new translation of \u003ci\u003eBeowulf\u003c\/i\u003e . . . I cannot recommend this translation more highly. It is accessible to the reader who has never encountered Beowulf before, yet it intrigues and challenges those who study the poem professionally.\" —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWorldOrigins.org\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShort-listed Locus Awards - Nominee (2021), Long-listed NPR Best Book of the Year (2020), Short-listed Hugo Award - Nominee (2021), Long-listed Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year (2020)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eISBN:  9780374110031\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ","brand":"MCD x FSG Originals","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ softback","offer_id":40678668009678,"sku":"9780374110031","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0600\/7029\/7806\/products\/getimage_bd28de7a-a5ef-43df-822f-b4b8f9c97a18.jpg?v=1643197302","url":"https:\/\/pickwickbookshop.com\/products\/9780374110031","provider":"Pickwick Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}