Aeneid, Books I-VI

David Hadbawnik’s astonishing modern translation of the Aeneid has been appearing in excerpts in a number of US publications, but this is the first time that the sequence has been brought together. This handsome volume presents Hadbawnik’s version of the first half of Virgil’s great national epic of ancient Rome, with atmospheric illustrations from Carrie Kaser. This hardcover edition is released in 2021, shortly before publication of Volume 2, which covers the remaining six books of the epic.

These translations are not only full of light, but also speed … Hadbawnik’s Aeneid is not the creative destruction of erasure, but rather the well-crafted impoverishment of something potentially too rich to take in. -Joe Milutis, Jacket2

David Hadbawnik’s free translation of the text steers away from the affectations of seamlessness that direct translations attempt, [and] instead shows the self-awareness of the translation as an effort at subsuming and translator’s role as appropriator. Hadbawnik uses this awareness to work against a translation of replacement by exposing the tension between the language and the text. -Jonathan Lohr, Actuary Lit

Juxtaposed with the gore and horror are Carrie Kaser’s amazing illustrations, which evoke both the soft touch of watercolor and the grittiness of smudged charcoal. Deer and sheep graze. Swans, like the ones Venus describes “flock[ing] and sing[ing] in the sky,” soar, and some “in a long line look down / at the others,” echoing the image of the wandering men of Troy. -Lisa Ampleman, Diagram