Ihar Kulikoŭ – Бяс край (End Less)
Illustration: Darja Kulikova
hochroth Minsk
Berlin, 2024
ISBN 978-3-949850-49-3
Language: Belarusian

Ihar Kulikoŭ was born in 1988 in Minsk. Graduated from the Faculty of Philology of the Belarusian State University. Writes poems. Translates poetry and sometimes prose, mainly from Sanskrit and English.

Author of seven collections of poetry: “Паварот на мора” (“Turn to the Sea”, 2011), “Свамова” (“Svamova”, 2013), “Сівер-гара” (“Northwind Mountain”, 2015), “Валадар загадак” (“Lord of Riddles”, 2017), “Храм ракі” (“River Temple”, 2019), “Вецер нішто і рэха цьмы” (“The Wind of Nothing and the Echo of Darkness”, 2021), “Нетутэйшая далечыня” (“The Distant Distance”, to be released in 2024).

Among the translations, there are the excerpts from the Mahabharata, selected works of Kalidasa, Bhartrihara and Robert Frost, as well as “The Lord of the Rings” by J. R. R. Tolkien.

The new collection of poems by Ihar Kulikoŭ can be called a prequel, a prelude before the main adventure. Here is everything one can expect from Kulikoŭ’s poetry: immersion in language, complex labyrinths of poetic storytelling, allusions, and philological games. “End Less” is both escape and pursuit, journey and return, crystallization of the self, and dissolution of the narrator in the ocean of māyā.

But at the same time, there is something new: the clarity of the metaphor, the economy and restraint of the emotions. Unexpectedly, the core image of the Motherland appears, too. It is the Patria Aeterna, which the author left behind and which shines as a guiding star in his journey.