{"product_id":"the-long-coming-of-the-fire-selected-poems-9781646053032","title":"The Long Coming of the Fire: Selected Poems","description":"A collection celebrating the Centennial of seminal modernist Macedonian poet Aco Sopov. This substantive collection represents Sopov's creative career, starting with his first book of poetry in 1944, when he was fighting in the Yugoslav resistance to the German occupation. In the early 1950s, he published two collections that signaled a new direction for Macedonian poetry as a whole, announcing the arrival of new form \"intimate lyricism\". Over the next 25 years, Sopov's work deepened further, acquiring a philosophical cosmic dimension and at times venturing into surrealism. The Long Coming of the Fire shares the work of a consummate craftsman little-known in the Anglophone world, achieving a \"penetrating, resonant, and melodic\" poetic language with \"a lively and pregnant imagery that binds together the experience of the author and reader\" (Graham W. Reid).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAco Sopov was born in 1923 in the town of Stip, in what is today North Macedonia. His first\u003cbr\u003ebook was published by the underground press in 1944, when he was fighting in the anti-Fascist\u003cbr\u003eresistance. By the early 1950s, he was a major Macedonian poet, notable for his deep personal\u003cbr\u003elyricism. His volumes \u003ci\u003eNot-Being\u003c\/i\u003e (\u003ci\u003eNebidnina\u003c\/i\u003e, 1963) and \u003ci\u003eReader of the Ashes\u003c\/i\u003e (\u003ci\u003eGledač na pepelta\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003cbr\u003e1970) are genuine masterworks, establishing his reputation as one of the founders of modern\u003cbr\u003eMacedonian poetry. Here Sopov's poetry expands into philosophical and existential questions, \u003cbr\u003eeven as it remains firmly rooted in an exploration of the self. The book \u003ci\u003eThe Song of the Black\u003cbr\u003eWoman\u003c\/i\u003e (\u003ci\u003ePesna na crnata zena\u003c\/i\u003e, 1976) emerged from Sopov's years as the Yugoslav ambassador\u003cbr\u003eto Senegal (from 1971 to 1975), a period when he also produced an award-winning translation of\u003cbr\u003epoems by the poet and Senegalese president Léopold Sédar Senghor. His health began to\u003cbr\u003edeteriorate in 1977, and his struggle with illness is reflected in his last book of poems, \u003ci\u003eThe Tree\u003cbr\u003eon the Hill\u003c\/i\u003e (1980). He died in 1982, at the age of 58. Collections of Sopov's work have been\u003cbr\u003etranslated into eleven languages, including French, Spanish, German, Russian, Hungarian, and\u003cbr\u003eRomanian. The bilingual English-Macedonian collection, \u003ci\u003eThe Long Coming of the Fire\u003c\/i\u003e is the first major edition of Sopov's poetry in English.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Phoneme Media","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50498179006738,"sku":"9781646053032","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_de3f23f5-9d9f-434a-96d3-72b971083e53.jpg?v=1730728247","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-long-coming-of-the-fire-selected-poems-9781646053032","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}