First known for his war-time poems written from a German labour camp − notably his sombre reworkings of the myth of the Magi - André Frénaud (1907-1993) is one of the most searching of French poets. His work is structured by a sense of quest, which gives it its labyrinthine patterns, underground tensions and fractured, inventive forms. His poetry has an epic and tragic dimension: spurred by an urge for transcendence, it refuses false paradises, arrivals and notions of reconciliation.

Frénaud is a strong and original French poet who deserves to be much better known in this country. This book uses the city of Rome as a focus for an impassioned meditation on culture and barbarism, faiths and revolts, cruelties and aspirations. Pagan and Christian forces come alike under the burning-glass in a work of immediate impact, even if at times dark and enigmatic.