The aria of lament: a literary translation of Vera Pavlova’s Chosen

This project is a translation of Chosen, a deeply personal collection of poems, diary entries, and photographs by contemporary Russian poet Vera Pavlova. Written during the final years of her husband’s life, the book captures her experience of love, grief, and resilience as he battled cancer. It’s a moving portrait of a couple facing the inevitable together—tender, sometimes playful, always honest.

What makes Pavlova's poetry especially powerful is its musical quality. A classically trained musician, she writes poems that are short, lyrical, and often follow a structured rhythm and rhyme. Translating them into English meant more than just finding the right words—it meant trying to preserve their music. I worked to keep the rhythm and sound that make her voice unique, even when English posed challenges that Russian didn’t.

Chosen is about what we hold onto in the face of loss: love, language, music. It’s an attempt to preserve something fleeting and beautiful, and through translation, to pass it on.