The Remains

Préface
A powerful new collection from the T S Eliot Prize shortlisted Annie Freud, featuring beautiful full-colour illustrations by the poet herself.

Auteur
Annie Freud studied English and European Literature at the University of Warwick. Her first collection The Best Man That Ever Was received the Glen Dimplex New Writers Award. Her second collection, The Mirabelles, was shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize. She is a tutor in poetry writing and lives in Dorset with her husband.

Texte du rabat

Annie Freud's new collection takes its inspiration from two unusual sources:firstly, an encounter with the masterpieces of the Sung Dynasty, which combined poetry, painting and calligraphy; and secondly, the collection of broken household china she amassed while she dug her garden. Stranger items were also brought to light: a tiny horseshoe, a fossilized scallop, a rusted silhouette of a hound . . . And from these prompts, voices began to recount their memories, state their convictions, consider their predicaments, declare their epiphanies and make their reassessments. Beautifully illustrated by the poet herself, The Remains is a book about art and love, making and giving, consolation and surprise - and shows one of our most original literary voices at her most arresting.

Résumé
Annie Freud's new book The Remains was inspired by a visit to an exhibition of Sung Dynasty works on paper, and their unselfconscious blending of illustration and poetry. However the book has its imaginative origins in a huge collection of broken household china amassed by the author while digging her garden. Stranger items also came to light: a minute horseshoe, a fossilised scallop shell, a rusted metal silhouette of a hound. These worn shards and talismans soon began work on Freud's singular imagination, and this extraordinary collection of poetry and art is the result. The Remains is concerned with what is left when everything seems broken or lost - and the new and unexpected things that happen when they are found again. Beautifully illustrated in full colour by the poet herself, The Remains is a powerful book of consolation and surprise from one of our most original literary voices.