Join Faber Members for 10% off your first order.
In a momentous publication, Seamus Heaney’s translation of Book VI of the Aeneid, Virgil’s epic poem composed sometime between 29 and 19 BC, follows the hero, Aeneas, on his descent into the underworld. In Stepping Stones, a book of interviews conducted by Dennis O’Driscoll, Heaney acknowledged the importance of the poem to his writing, noting that ‘there’s one Virgilian journey that has indeed been a constant presence, and that is Aeneas’s venture into the underworld. The motifs in Book VI have been in my head for years – the golden bough, Charon’s barge, the quest to meet the shade of the father.’
In this new translation, Heaney employs the same deft handling of the original combined with the immediacy of language and flawless poetic voice as was on show in his translation of Beowulf, a reimagining which, in the words of Bernard O’Donoghue, brought the ancient poem back to life in ‘a miraculous mix of the poem’s original spirit and Heaney’s voice’.
Seamus Heaney was born in County Derry in Northern Ireland. Death of a Naturalist, his first collection of poems, appeared in 1966, and was followed by poetry, criticism and translations which established him as the leading poet of his generation. In 1995 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, and twice won the Whitbread Book of the Year, for The Spirit…
Read More
Our Poem of the Week is ‘Anahorish’ from Wintering Out, Seamus Heaney’s third collection of poetry.
This week, our Poem of the Week is Seamus Heaney's 'Song', from his 1979 collection, Field Work.
Looking for a book to curl up with by the fire? We asked Faber staff to tell us which books …
How do you write a city that hasn’t decided what it’s going to be next? In the latest of our …
Authors’ letters provide fascinating insights into the personalities and social context behind some of the greatest works of our time.
We asked Faber Members to send in their first encounters with the writing of Seamus Heaney and were thrilled with …
To mark the tenth anniversary of Seamus Heaney’s death and to celebrate his extraordinary legacy, we share a poem from …
As the summer holidays approach, we’re beginning to think about which books to pack for our holiday reading. The Faber …
Are you planning a summer getaway? Or not going away and looking for a bit of escapism? Browse our list …
To celebrate Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These winning the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction 2022, we’ve curated a selection …
For what would have been Seamus Heaney’s 83rd birthday, we asked our Faber colleagues to share their first or favourite …
Director Adam Low shares his diary for his BBC documentary 'Seamus Heaney and the Music of What Happens'
Faber is very pleased to announce the publication of a new work by Seamus Heaney, a verse translation of Aeneid: Book …