Product Description

The Astonished Universe is an uplifting and luminous book of poetry about consciousness. It is Red Hen Press' first bilingual edition in English and French.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #476634 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-15
• Released on: 2006-10-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 104 pages

Review
The Astonished Universe is a tour de force of language and phonetics; a deeply felt and deeply spiritual collection which explores the universal human experience from a very personal point of view. This is intimate poetry, and yet it transcends the mundane through its lyricism and its glory in language. Hélène Cardona's pen moves from the human to the divine and back in a single sentence, and the result is uplifting and magical. --Joanne Harris, best selling author of Chocolat.

Hélène Cardona tells us that the poems of The Astonished Universe were first conceived in English, then rendered into French. Yet for such a many-languaged mind as hers, the translations must have been there from the beginning. It seems, in any case, that each poem fully exists in two tongues at once, and this adds to the book s great charm and visionary quality. --Richard Wilbur

Poems that explore and claim whole worlds - embracing and beautiful. --Olympia Dukakis

About the Author
A citizen of the United States, France, and Spain, Hélène is fluent in English, French, Spanish, German, Greek, and Italian. Born in Paris of a Greek mother and Spanish father and raised all over Europe, she attended Hamilton College, New York, and the Sorbonne, Paris, where she wrote her thesis on Henry James for her Masters in American Literature. She worked as a translator and interpreter for the Canadian Embassy and the Chambre Française de Commerce Extérieur in Paris. She has traveled extensively and lived in Geneva, Cambridge, London, Llandudno, Monte-Carlo, Bremen, Tarragona, New York City and Santa Monica. A graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, she played Fuffi Drou in Lasse Hallström s Chocolat, Candy in Lawrence Kasdan's Mumford, as well as roles in Law & Order and The New Adventures of Robin Hood. Voice credits include The Bourne Supremacy, The Terminal, Big Fish, The Interpreter, The Pink Panther, and others. For Serendipity, she co-wrote with Peter Chelsom the song Lucienne, which she also sang.

Customer Reviews

Soulful and Transforming
Take a magical journey with Helene and allow her poems to lift you into the upper realms. Transformational and dreamy, yet her words can bring us home...to ourselves.

A Magical Journey in Verse
What a wonderfully magical and enlightening series of poems! The Author provides for a variety of emotion; excitement, sorrow, joy and wonder.....exactly as we search for these words in life itself. A nice book to reflect upon long after being read for the first time. I also gave copies as gifts and were very well received. A must!

The Astonished Strength
This is a remarkable book of poetry. I am absolutely delighted and I highly recommend this magical read.