A mosaic of 48 short chapters, each recalling a particular episode from one of Brodsky’s visits to Venice. Its narrative structure, sometimes racing ahead, sometimes turning back reflectively on itself, mirrors in prose the strange meanderings and sudden startling open vistas of the city itself. Writing in the New Yorker John Updike found himself ‘enraptured by [Brodsky’s] gallant attempt to distil a precious meaning from life’s experience – to make a spot on a globe a window into universal circumstance.’

Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc | Paperback 135 pp. |ISBN: 9780374523824