Letters of Marina Tsvetaeva

One of the greatest poets of twentieth-century Russia is here revealed in all her difficulty and brilliance. This volume contains over 800 letters, most of which have never before been translated, dating from Tsvetaeva's childhood to her suicide in 1941. In her letters to Rilke, Khodasevich, Pasternak, Teskova and many others. Tsvetaeva reflects on all the tragic and comic shifts of her biography, as she goes from precocious success to mature accomplishment, lives in exile and then returns to the Soviet Union. The letters deal with everything from the tragedy of exile, to cultural influences, to the inspiration of love affairs. The main subject, however, is what it means to be a poet -- in the practical as well as the exalted sense. These letters are literary documents which provide insights into the nature of the poetic process, and into the cost to the poet of marriage and motherhood.