A review by askannakarenina
Hope Against Hope by Max Hayward, Nadezhda Mandelstam, Clarence Brown, Joseph Brodsky

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.5

This book is difficult--philosophically dense, full of literary theory and history. It's also emotionally brutal. But it's incredibly well-written, and incredibly valuable reading. Mandelstam discusses what it means to be an intellectual, and what it means to cooperate or to resist a regime, and she discusses why poetry matters, for all of mankind. This is an extremely important book.