'This book is outstanding value for money. Apart from 264 pages of poems, there are notes by both writer and translator, an informative introduction and lengthy excerpts from Akhmatova's autobiographical writings. And of course the stamp of greatness is all over it; nobody could mistake the sound of someone creating on a different level. Reading these poems is like being higher up a mountain than people are meant to go; you can only take it for so long' - Sheenagh Pugh, Poetry Review