Land of Evening

Kathleen Raine wrote: 'When I first met Jean Mambrino he was an ardent young novice about to be ordained a priest of the Society of Jesus. Now in his eighties he has emerged from a tempestuous life no longer concerned with church matters into an old age full of love and wisdom. In the Jesuit house in Paris he is the literary, theatre and cinema editor of their review Aetudes . The collection of poems L'Hesperie: Pays du Soir are poems of old age, a theme which I am myself well qualified to understand, and translating them has been a labour of love. In the year 1957 Jean published a French translation (with Marie-Beatrix Mesnet) of my poem-sequence On a Deserted Shore in Francois-Xavier Jaujard's Aedition Granit . I am happy that Enitharmon Press gives me this opportunity to reciprocate.'