ABOUT THIS BOOK

Brings together two intimate, reflective essays by two acclaimed poets, Ilya Kaminsky and Piotr Florczyck, as they revisit their hometowns of Odesa and Kraków, exploring the complexities of return, memory, and identity.

Within, Without: On Two Cities presents two essays by Eastern European–born poets and translators, Ilya Kaminsky and Piotr Florczyk, now based in the United States. Revisiting their respective hometowns—Odesa and Kraków—they grapple with questions of history, identity, and belonging. What does it mean for an immigrant or refugee to return? Can one ever truly go back to a homeland that has since been transformed? Kaminsky and Florczyk chart a path forward by embracing the complexities of their transnational and translingual identities, as artists and as human beings.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Ilya Kaminsky is a poet, essayist, and translator who is the author of Deaf Republic and Dancing in Odessa, among other books. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and teaches at Princeton University. Piotr Florczyk is a poet, essayist, translator, and critic working in English and in Polish. He teaches global literary studies at the University of Washington, Seattle, and lives with his family in Los Angeles.

REVIEWS

Praise for Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky:
“These poems bestow the power of sacred drama on a secular martyrology. . . . Kaminsky is wonderfully attentive to . . . repeating patterns of details, contributing to the impression that his book is a through-composed whole, rather than simply a sequence of individual poems. . . . By situating these poems in a country at war, Kaminsky forces the reader to consider both the ways in which we define our social belonging and the loyalties according to which we operate. . . . A visit to this republic will not leave the reader unchanged.”-The New York Times Book Review

Praise for Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky:
“Evident throughout [Deaf Republic] is a profound imagination, matched only by the poet’s ability to create a republic of conscience that is ultimately ours, too, and utterly his own-a map of what it means to live ‘in a peaceful country.”-Kevin Young, The New Yorker

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. ‘Silent City’ by Ilya Kaminsky
2. ‘There There’ by Piotr Florczyk