Old Songs

. .the publishing of this collection is a welcome stage in the reception of her exceptional genius in the West.” So writes Rowan Williams in his foreword to this translation of Old Songs. Born in Moscow in 1949, Olga Sedakova emerged as a leading writer of the late Soviet period. Since 2014, she has been an outspoken critic of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Her writing bears witness to the values of generosity, attention, and non-violence. The poems in Old Songs construct a world shaped by these values, forming a lyric sequence infused with folk wisdom and anchored in moral courage. It is a world brought into being by song, the kind passed down over cradles and on walks through the garden. These poems find their way into