The Arriere-Pays

Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction/Stephen Romer. 2. The arriere pays. 3. Returns tot he arriere pays: three recent texts. 4. Afterword: September 2004. 5. The place of grasses. 6. My memories of armenia.

Since the publication of his first book in 1953, Yves Bonnefoy has become one of the most important French poets of the postwar years. At last, we have the long awaited English translation of his celebrated work, L\'Arriere-pays, which takes us to the heart of his creative process and to the very core of his poetic spirit.

In his poem The Convex Mirror, Bonnefoy writes: Look at them down there at that crossroads. They seem to hesitate then go on.  The idea of the crossroads haunts Bonnefoy\'s work, as he is troubled by the idea that the path not taken may lead to the arriere pays a place of greater plenitude and of more authentic being-- an elsewhere in the absolute. Seized by this fear that what he terms presence exists always somewhere else a little further on, Bonnefory here sets out on a labyrinthine quest to find traces of this original place, which he locates not only in objects of knowledge and experience as diverse as the deserts of Asia, a hill fort in India, a church in Armenia the painting of Piero della Francesca but also crucially in the undivided intensity of his experiences as a child. Written with a visionary grace, The Arriere pays is a spiritual testament to art, philosophy and poetry. (jacket)