Winner of the Heldt Prize for Translation. A new translation of the Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet, with an introduction by Czeslaw Milosz. This long-awaited volume samples the full range of Wislawa Szymborska's major themes: the ironies of love, the wonders of nature's beauty, and the illusory character of art. Szymborska's voice emerges as that of a gentle subversive, self-deprecating in its wit, yet graced with a gift for coaxing the extraordinary out of the ordinary.

Wislawa Szymborska was born in Western Poland in 1923. Her poems have been translated (and published in book form) in many international languages. She is the Goethe Prize winner (1991) and Herder Prize winner (1995). She has a degree of Honorary Doctor of Letters of Poznan University (1995). In 1996 she received the Polish PEN Club prize, and is the1996 Nobel Laureate in Literature.