That Summer

Following last season's Little Parsley, this new Hagerup volume was first published in Norway in 1971. At the time, it was a literary scandal for offering free verse to children, who were best suited, as the critics claimed, to the orderly rhymes of established poetic forms. Time and the inherently free and wild forms of youthful imagination have proven the critics completely wrong. Gorgeously illustrated by Paul Ren Gauguin, with his most antic line, as well as hand lettered, and playfully translated by Beck Crook, this collection of Hagerup poems is pure pleasure.

Generations of Norwegian children have grown up reading and reciting poems by Inger Hagerup (1905-1985). She made her literary debut in 1939 with I got Lost in the Woods, a collection of poetry. This was followed by a number of notable collections, like Further (1945) and Verse with the Wind (1958). Involved with in the resistance movement against the Nazis in Norway during World War II, Hagerup is, above all, a poet of love. But she is also a poet of death; many of her best poems circle this subject. In addition to her life as a children’s author, she wrote radio plays and reinterpreted Shakespeare and Goethe. Her memoirs A Girl Came Along, What Are You Doing Down Here, and Out Seeking Labour, were published in the 60’s.
Born in Cophenhagen, the son of Pola Gauguin and the grandson of the French post-impressionist Paul Gauguin, Paul René Gauguin (1911-1976) was a painter, sculptor, set designer, and illustrator. He is well remembered for his innovative color woodcuts. He first learned wood cutting techniques while on fishing trips in Ibiza and Mallorca. His art draws inspiration from Max Ernst, Vincent van Gogh, and Georges Braque.
Becky Lynn Crook (1980-) born in Hartford, CT, is a writer and literary translator from German and Norwegian. In 2010, while living in Berlin, she founded and edited SAND, an English literary journal. In the Netherlands, she began translating numerous novels, nonfiction, short stories, and children’s books. Her translations have appeared in Granta, Guernica, and Freeman’s, among others. After coming across Inger Hagreup’s children’s poems in 2011, she was inspired to introduce the poems to international readers and was delighted they have found a home with Enchanted Lion Books. Becky is currently writing her own first novel, composing a children’s book or two, and at work on a nonfiction collection of thoughts on hiking and stumbling while female. She lives on Bainbridge Island, WA with her husband, daughter, and Momo, the cat.