Late Montale

Book excerpt: Late Montale is a generous selection of the poems that the Nobel laureate Eugenio Montale wrote in the last decade of his life, including many drawn from notebooks he entrusted to his housekeeper, which appear here in English for the first time. In new translations by the American poet George Bradley that carry over all the wit and lucidity of the originals, each poem takes on a fresh immediacy. Together, they form an ideal introduction for readers unfamiliar with these late works, and for readers who have long admired them, a sparkling reminder of their subtle art of disillusion and surprise.