''The Sorrow Gondola'' ( sv, Sorgegondolen) is a 1996 poetry collection by the Swedish writer Tomas Tranströmer. The title refers to the composition ''

La lugubre gondola ''La lugubre gondola'', a piano piece, is one of Franz Liszt's most important late works, written in 1882. History Its genesis is well documented in letters from which we know that Liszt was Richard Wagner's guest in the Palazzo Vendramin on ...

'' by

Franz Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...

. It was the first collection by Tranströmer published after his 1990

stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...

. It received the

August Prize The August Prize ( sv, Augustpriset) is an annual Swedish literary prize awarded each year since 1989 by the Swedish Publishers' Association. The prize is awarded to the best Swedish book of the year, in three categories. Prize In the years 1989- ...

Reception

The book was reviewed in ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...

'', where the critic wrote that while the author's stroke is never mentioned explicitly, the collection "centers unmistakably on the controlled anguish that the 66-year-old poet's physical condition--and encroaching mortality--imposes." The review continued: "What saves the collection from morbidness is the formal beauty and remorselessly compressed clarity of the writing. Indeed, the almost telegraphic brevity of the poems is the volume's only concession to Transtromer's handicap. With the exception of the four-page title poem, a meditation on

Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

's final months, most of the pieces are only a few stanzas long, yet they retain all the force of the poet's earlier work."

References

1996 poetry books Poetry by Tomas Tranströmer Swedish poetry collections Albert Bonniers Förlag books August Prize-winning works {{Poetry-stub

Reception

See also

References