In the Mirror of the Eighth King

In this new book of essays the noted British poet and translator explores a world in which things are slightly awry. A dwarf in Trebizond is offended because his donors will not enter the cavern of a restaurant outside of which he waits; each June the head of Balzac appears on the plaster of a wall in a small French village; a warbler in the market at Rize on the Black Sea lets loose with a call the author is sure is directly from the mountains of Georgia.