The Lost Upland

In The Lost Upland, W. S. Merwin vividly conveys his intimate knowledge of the people and the countryside in this ancient part of France (home of the Lascaux caves). In three narratives of small–town life, Merwin shows with matchless poetic and narrative power how the past is still palpably present.



On its original publication in 1992 Jane Kramer wrote, "These stories are a gift from one of the great poets of the English language, a chronicle of the heart–stopping seasons of one small corner of La France Profonde and of its stubborn and illusive characters. Merwin's French peasants are a force of nature, like the blackberry brambles that used to choke his garden, and he cultivates them both with that attentive, exacting, and relentlessly patient genius that great poets and great gardeners share. This is, simply, the most beautiful writing about France I know."“Merwin’s most impressive book, as well as a rare achievement.”—Roger Shattuck, The New York Review of BooksW. S. Merwin is one of our most distinguished poets and translators and is the acting United States Poet Laureate. A two–time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, he has also been honored with the Bollingen Prize and a Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets. In 1995 he received the first Dorothea Tanning Prize. He lives and works in Hawaii.