Moscow in the Plague Year, by Marina Tsvetaeva

Representing some of Tsvetaeva’s most remarkable work, this collection of poems, written during the years of the Moscow famine and the Russian Revolution of 1917, is suffused with biting irony and vibrant imagery. Frequently invoking images of resistance, Tsvetaeva approaches female resilience with sustained strength and an infectious sense of humor. “For a woman,” she observes, “God is the equivalent of an aging husband.” Deeply admired by Rainer Maria Rilke and Vladimir Nabokov, Tsvetaeva is widely considered one of the most important poets of twentieth-century Russia. This is the first time many of these poems have appeared in English.