Friedrich Hölderlin - Selected Poems

India Russell is a widely published poet, her fourth collection being Pattern The Golden Thread (Paekakariki Press, 2014). Virginia McKenna, who has recorded much of India’s poetry, writes, ‘India Russell continues to weave her deep magic, uniquely transporting us into other realms, awakening memories images.’ It was the magic of the natural worlds, visible and invisible, in the work of Friedrich Hölderlin that made India Russell decide to embark on her translation, Hyperion or the Hermit in Greece, which has been called ‘a true poet’s translation.’

India, a Fellow of the Temenos Academy, studied German and Scandinavian at University College London and was Junior Research Fellow in German at King’s College, London. She holds a Speech Drama Licentiate at Guildhall School of Music Drama and trained in Contemporary Dance at The Place. But her ‘real teachers’, she writes, ‘have always been the natural world, visions and dreams, for which, thank goodness, there are no colleges or universities.'