Saturday August 6th 2011

Hearing John Manson read is to rub shoulders Louis Aragon and Paul Eluard from France,  Eugenio Montale from Italy, Raphael Albertini  from Spain and the legendary Pablo Neruda from Chile – poets who began their careers in the 1920s and who shaped 20th century European poetry.

John, a widely published poet, translator and scholar, received the first ever Scottish Arts Council award for translation and is currently translating a remarkable, haunting and sometimes surreal series of poems by Aragon -  Les Chambres - poems about rooms Aragon shared with his wife during their long marriage. This is a rare chance to hear a poet who welded together the Scottish and European literary traditions.–.

You’ve always supported the greatest writers Angus Calder.

Take Louis Aragon’s ‘Epilogue’, a dark and eloquent warning to future generations – ‘You’ll learn nothing from our illusions, understand nothing from our mistakes’
(Guardian Review about John Manson’s translation)