{"product_id":"the-forest-song-a-new-translation-with-introduction-and-commentary-paperback","title":"The Forest Song: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eLesya Ukrainka\u003c\/b\u003e (Author), \u003cb\u003eSerhii Sakal\u003c\/b\u003e (Translator)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the summer of 1911, Lesya Ukrainka was living in Georgia, four hundred miles from anywhere she had ever called home, ill with the tuberculosis that would kill her two years later. In ten or twelve days she wrote a play set in a forest in Volhynia that she had not seen in years and would not see again. It became the best-loved work in Ukrainian literature.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Forest Song\u003c\/em\u003e opens on a lake in early spring, among beings who have lived there far longer than any village: Lisovyk, the old lord of the wood; Vodyanyk in his lake; Rusalka, who kills by laughter. Mavka wakes from her winter sleep to a sound she has never heard - a young man playing a pipe. She goes to find him.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat follows is not the fairy tale that setup promises. Lukash is an ordinary young man with a mother, a debt, and a field that needs cutting. Mavka comes to live in his house and is put to work. A widow from the next village arrives, capable and impatient and entirely reasonable, and the forest gives ground to the farm. The play's argument is not nature against civilisation. It is about what a person owes to the thing they have woken in someone else - and about what survives being betrayed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUkrainka called it a \u003cem\u003edrama-feieriia\u003c\/em\u003e, a drama-fairy play: flying spirits, transformations, a house on fire, and inside all that machinery a marriage, a mother-in-law, and a death.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis annotated edition is designed for readers coming to Ukrainian literature for the first time as well as for those who already know it. The Ukrainian names of the forest beings are kept rather than flattened into nymphs and goblins, and explained where they appear.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt includes: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e- a new verse translation, in blank verse for the dialogue and rhyme where Ukrainka sings\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e - a translator's introduction on the play, its author, and the choices behind this English text\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e - footnotes throughout, kept light enough to read past\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e - a substantial back commentary, scene by scene, on symbolism, folklore, and the passages where the Ukrainian will not go quietly into English\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e - a glossary of the forest beings, with the Ukrainian terms\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e - a pronunciation guide\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTranslated from the Ukrainian by Serhii Sakal, whose previous translation is Taras Shevchenko's \u003cem\u003eThe Artist\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 258\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.58 x 9 x 6 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e July 31, 2026\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56439579607345,"sku":"9798256222536","price":18.34,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1004\/9532\/7537\/files\/4i9PrA9Rvn9798256222536.webp?v=1790189848","url":"https:\/\/mitchellofficial.com\/products\/the-forest-song-a-new-translation-with-introduction-and-commentary-paperback","provider":"MITCHELL","version":"1.0","type":"link"}