HARPER PERENNIAL ANNOUNCES ACQUISITION OF A NEW TRANSLATION OF THE COMPLETE PLAYS OF SOPHOCLES

Harper Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, today announced the acquisition of The Complete Plays of Sophocles, in a new translation by poets and playwrights Robert Bagg and James Scully, for publication in August 2011.

The new translation preserves the intent of the original Greek, while bringing into the text meanings and implications, dramatic tension and momentum, that previous translations have not captured.

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Richard Wilbur said of the new translation, “I have often taught Sophocles in my humanities courses at Harvard and Wesleyan, and I know that these accurate, colloquial and vigorous translations would seize the imaginations of students, as indeed of the general reader. Many respectable renderings of Sophocles exist, but too often their themes and passions are muffled by a too ‘classical’ style. Bagg's Oedipus or Scully's remarkable Aias, are as finely wrought as one could desire, but they have a spare impact which gets across the moment-by-moment emotion of the plays, and makes plain the moral or political themes at issue. As a translator who has had much to do with theatre, I see the Sophocles plays of Bagg and Scully as ideal for the contemporary stage, as indeed they have already proven to be.”

Robert Bagg is the author of five books of poetry, including Madonna of the Cello, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.  His translations of Euripides and Sophocles have been staged in sixty productions worldwide.  Over the years his projects have been supported by Prix de Rome, Guggenheim, Rockefeller, NEA, and NEH fellowships.  James Scully has published eleven books of poems, and three book-length translations.  His first book of poetry, The Marches, won the Lamont Poetry Award from the Academy of American Poets.  He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a fellowship from the NEA.

Allison Lorentzen and Carrie Kania at Harper Perennial acquired World English rights from Wendy Strothman of the Strothman Agency LLC.

The initial August 2011 publication of The Complete Plays of Sophocles will be followed by separate editions of the plays, grouped by theme (e.g. the Theban plays, the outcast plays, etc.)  The Complete Plays of Sophocles will contain a general introduction to Sophocles and Greek drama, as well as short introductions to each play.

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