Take My Word for It

Cassian Nina

"Take My Word for It" is Nina Cassian's first collection of poems in English. Since being forced in 1985 to abandon her native Romania, where she had published more than 50 books, she has settled in New York. The American poet and critic Stanley Kunitz acclaims her as "a world-class poet, high-spirited, fierce, intelligent, uncompromising, and wonderfully nervy". These qualities are evident in her new poems, whose tone is playful and optimistic, sharp, witty, funny and wise.

About the Author

Nina Cassian, born in Romania in 1924, has published over sixty books, including works of fiction and children's books. She is also a composer and translator (notably of three Shakespeare plays), and was a journalist and film critic. Since 1985 she has lived in New York City, having remained in the West for fear of reprisals in the then communist Romania of Ceausescu. Her work is now published again in Romania. Her selected poems in translation "Life Sentence" (Anvil 1990; new edition 1998) confirmed her worldwide reputation.

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