Steven Connor writes:

How should one read Nostradamus? The unceasing effort to decipher his verses, as if they were simply locks to be picked, has meant that they have rarely been able to be read in any way that is attentive to them as writing rather than as a cracked oracle. Up to now, the texts of his prophecies have been available to English readers only in editions whose principal purpose is to demonstrate their predictive power, often through quatrain-by-quatrain explication. Now, a vigorous, wry, alert new translation by Richard Sieburth offers English readers the experience of reading them steadily and sequentially, rather than piecemeal, and with the original French on facing pages, making it possible to read the prophecies as acts of writing rather than riddles.

(LRB 27 September 2012)

Penguin Classics | Hardback 400 pp. |ISBN: 9780143106753