“A stunningly powerful piece of writing, a modern classic.” –The Sunday Times on Burying the Typewriter

“The poems reprinted here are in their different ways remarkable but nothing can beat ‘The Divorce’ for its combination of emotional power and linguistic restraint. It’s one of the most memorable modern poems of witness I have read. […] This is in every way a stunning volume by an utterly remarkable writer.”–Duncan Wu, Raymond A Wagner Professor of Literary Studies, Georgetown University, on Poetry and the Language of Oppression

“This beguiling memoir is reminiscent at times of the wonderful childhood autobiographies of Sergei Aksakov and Maxim Gorki.”–Paul Bailey, Independent, on Burying the Typewriter

“In the minutiae of her study she has provided Heaney students with a valuable resource that will be challenging to surpass.”–Gerard Smyth on Seamus Heaney and East European Poetry in Translation: Poetics of Exile

“‘No patriotism but in things’—things turned into images cut on a printer’s block.”–The Manhattan Review on Lilies from America

“An incorruptible woman of letters. … from the grey inhumanity of the documents to the deep colours of her art”–Sir Christopher Ricks

“We have here a telling biographical document on the exasperation of captivity and the lyrical, surprising consequence of such a spiritual nightmare.”–Norman Manea on Releasing the Porcelain Birds

“Bugan, a published poet, can with a single sentence paint a portrait of almost visceral immediacy.[…] If Bugan’s memoir is transformative, her poetry is downright alchemical, transmuting the deprivations of her family’s life experiences into dreamy gold.”–The Irish Times

“Bugan has written a deeply personal account of her travels across the languages of poetry and oppression. These two languages, she argues with admirable clarity, are not isolated from one another; they are often co-present, compelling us to come to terms with the fragility of poetry.” — Galin Tihanov, George Steiner Professor of Comparative Literature , Queen Mary University of London, on Poetry and the Language of Oppression

“Carmen Bugan’s poems prove a worthwhile witness… Despite the gentleness of the language, they explore the sinister nature of humanity…” –The Blue Nib

“With vehemence and delicacy, she criticizes tyranny, nationalism, language, and adulthood.”–Tint Journal on Lilies from America

“Releasing the Porcelain Birds is one continuous poem which faces down dispossession and reaches towards exuberance.”–Kelvin Corcoran