The Idea of Perfection
The Poetry and Prose of Paul Valéry
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020

“Nathaniel Rudavsky-Brody . . . has made newly available, in assiduously balanced and nuanced translations, all the significant poems of this now overlooked titan of French letters, and along with them, rousing extracts from Valéry’s extraordinary, posthumously published notebooks. . . . [His] versions of Valéry’s poems are often beautiful and in places inspired.”
— Claire Messud, New York Review of Books

“Amazing modernist work . . . The poetry can seem old-fashioned if you're not looking and listening very hard. When you linger over it, a sort of shock sets in. Rudavsky-Brody's translations catch this effect very well. They are patient, thoughtful and often imaginative . . .”
— Michael Wood, London Review of Books

“FSG’s handsome bilingual edition of Paul Valéry . . . intersperses the major poems with passages from the notebooks – a smart way of staging Valéry’s dissatisfaction with received form, while drawing attention to his repetitive, heartbreaking obsession with lost futures.”
— Hannah Sullivan, Times Literary Supplement

“A gratifying affirmation of Valéry’s central place in 20th-century literature . . . occasionally [Rudavsky-Brody's] lines are more striking than their French originals.”
— Adrian Nathan West, Washington Examiner

“Nathaniel Rudavsky-Brody’s new selection of Valéry’s poems . . . is welcome indeed. His translations are fresher than any previous English versions . . .”
— Mark Scroggins, Hyperallergic

“Rudavsky-Brody’s version of Valéry brings the work closer to our age and thus, to our ears. [It] manages to hold on to the incantatory sense of the French.”
— Sean Nam, Dublin Review of Books

“[Valéry] isn’t much read in English, and one can only hope that Nathaniel Rudavsky-Brody’s translations . . . will help change that.”
— Michael Dirda, Washington Post

“The Idea of Perfection is a seductive title, and appropriately ironic . . . Valéry was a poet who came close to neoclassical perfection, as well as a modern thinker who understood how elusive perfection would always remain.”
— Allan Graubard, Los Angeles Review of Books

“Rudavsky-Brody has brought the verse forward without losing the scathing ecstasy . . . ” — Devin King, Fence Digital

“Scrupulously faithful translations.” — Airmail

“A fascinating introduction to a major poet . . .”
— Edmund Prestwich, The Manchester Review

Benjamin Fondane's Ulysses
Syracuse University Press, 2017
Preface by David Rieff
Susan Sontag Prize for Translation

“Precise and elegant . . . magisterially reproduced.” — French Studies

“A gifted translator . . . ” — Translation Review

“An important transcultural contribution . . .”
— The Journal of Modern Jewish Studies

“[An] admirable translation . . . Fondane’s Ulysses is a landmark work of French literature and one that is not to be missed.” — Asymtote

The Sorrow of Ghosts
by Benjamin Fondane, in Cinepoems and Others
New York Review Books, 2016

“One can hardly overestimate the importance of this bilingual edition.”
— Ramona Fotiade Times Literary Supplement

“Fine translations . . . [The Sorrow of Ghosts] rightly takes pride of place.”
— Chris Miller, PN Review