--- product_id: 68653975 title: "If Not, Winter: The Complete Fragments of Sappho" price: "€ 33.62" currency: EUR in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.hr/products/68653975-if-not-winter-the-complete-fragments-of-sappho store_origin: HR region: Croatia --- # If Not, Winter: The Complete Fragments of Sappho **Price:** € 33.62 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** If Not, Winter: The Complete Fragments of Sappho - **How much does it cost?** € 33.62 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.hr](https://www.desertcart.hr/products/68653975-if-not-winter-the-complete-fragments-of-sappho) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description 'A superb version . . . subtle, beautiful, precise, moving' THE TIMES The definitive complete translation of Sappho, by one of the world's greatest living poets Not much is known about Sappho, the great poetess of Ancient Greece. Her relationships, her queerness, her family, her death - all these details are hazy, lost to time. Likewise, of the nine scrolls of lyrics Sappho is said to have composed during her life on the island of Lebsos, only one poem has survived complete - the rest are fragments. In If Not, Winter , Anne Carson has collected and translated all the surviving fragments of Sappho's verse. With the original Greek parallel to each poem, Carson leaves brackets and white space to signal the gaps where text has been lost to time - allowing us to imagine the poems as they were written. With her singular style and extensive translator's notes, Carson pieces together the voice of Sappho. And through her, Sappho's reflections on love and desire, suitors and rivals, goddesses and daughters, echo through millennia. 'The beautiful blur of Sappho's work, the rhythms, the ornate grammar, the singing sounds she teases out of rare words . . . are impossible to match' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Imaginatively presented and superbly prefaced, this collection is both heartrending and uplifting' INDEPENDENT 'A defining translation' THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO SAPPHO 'Anne Carson's translations of Sappho are small miracles of vividness' EMILY ROBINSON, ANNE CARSON: ECSTATIC LYRE '[Carson's] command of language is honed to a perfect edge and her approach to the text, respectful yet imaginative, results in verse that lets Sappho shine forth' LOS ANGELES TIMES 'A spare and elegant rendering of every word of Sappho's that has come down to us' MERYL ALTMAN, A WOMAN'S REVIEW OF BOOKS 'A haunting translation' LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS Review: Alpine beauty - Sappho is notoriously problematic to bring into the modern world - we have a bare handful of complete or semi-complete poems and some odd lines. Often we only know the odd lines because some centuries-later scribe quoted a text from her to illustrate an entirely unconnectedly point of usage, so we are left hopelessly short of context as to what the line could possibly have meant. After that there are just dozens of pathetic scraps of papyrus with odd words and half-words. She had a spectacular reputation in ancient times, however, and there's no doubting the depth of her human sensitivities nor the range of her output. Various translators have made their best efforts to live with these flimsiest of materials and come up with some fashion of a response to open Sappho's exquisite subtleties to the modern reader. Many of these efforts fail through trying much too hard. Anne Carson however succeeds wonderfully by shooting low. She provides a terse and finely written introduction, and gives a carefully literal but not unpoetic translation of every word that's complete. She is willing to hazard some guesses regarding words that aren't complete, but this is done judiciously in that as soon as there's a genuine ambiguity she steps back and leave the Greek fragment to speak for itself. You are left with a charming edition, understated and yet deeply evocative of the challenges faced by this very talented woman who lived such a full and rewarding emotional life. Review: Get the hardback - if you can find it - I'm really giving this edition of Sappho two slightly different marks, divided purely by production. To start with, Anne Carson's translation is excellent, the facing text (based on Voigt's Sappho et Alcaeus: Fragmenta, 1971) clear and Carson's endnotes both helpful and interesting. However, there is a difference between the hardback and paperback edition. The hardback has excellent paper and the Greek text is printed in red ink (I give it five stars) where the paperback is on poorer over-bleached paper, with the Greek text printed in a grey tone which reduces its legibility (four stars). If you get any pleasure out of a physical book or want to use the Greek text I recommend if possible trying to find a copy of the hardback, sadly some years out of print. A more simply-solved recommendation is to buy a copy of Anne Carson's critical book on Sappho as an accompaniment to this book. Eros the Bittersweet takes you through Sappho's poetry with Carson's particular vision (and her strong classical scholarship) as a guide. Strongly recommended. I'm pleased to find that the official reprint edition by Dalkey Archive is of excellent quality - and is inexpensive. ## Features - New Store Stock ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | 42,488 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) 40 in Mystical Poetry 73 in Criticism on Poetry & Poets 84 in Love Poetry (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.7 out of 5 stars 844 Reviews | ## Images ![If Not, Winter: The Complete Fragments of Sappho - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91EIx6Z0BBL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Alpine beauty *by N***R on 4 June 2009* Sappho is notoriously problematic to bring into the modern world - we have a bare handful of complete or semi-complete poems and some odd lines. Often we only know the odd lines because some centuries-later scribe quoted a text from her to illustrate an entirely unconnectedly point of usage, so we are left hopelessly short of context as to what the line could possibly have meant. After that there are just dozens of pathetic scraps of papyrus with odd words and half-words. She had a spectacular reputation in ancient times, however, and there's no doubting the depth of her human sensitivities nor the range of her output. Various translators have made their best efforts to live with these flimsiest of materials and come up with some fashion of a response to open Sappho's exquisite subtleties to the modern reader. Many of these efforts fail through trying much too hard. Anne Carson however succeeds wonderfully by shooting low. She provides a terse and finely written introduction, and gives a carefully literal but not unpoetic translation of every word that's complete. She is willing to hazard some guesses regarding words that aren't complete, but this is done judiciously in that as soon as there's a genuine ambiguity she steps back and leave the Greek fragment to speak for itself. You are left with a charming edition, understated and yet deeply evocative of the challenges faced by this very talented woman who lived such a full and rewarding emotional life. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Get the hardback - if you can find it *by J***E on 13 September 2015* I'm really giving this edition of Sappho two slightly different marks, divided purely by production. To start with, Anne Carson's translation is excellent, the facing text (based on Voigt's Sappho et Alcaeus: Fragmenta, 1971) clear and Carson's endnotes both helpful and interesting. However, there is a difference between the hardback and paperback edition. The hardback has excellent paper and the Greek text is printed in red ink (I give it five stars) where the paperback is on poorer over-bleached paper, with the Greek text printed in a grey tone which reduces its legibility (four stars). If you get any pleasure out of a physical book or want to use the Greek text I recommend if possible trying to find a copy of the hardback, sadly some years out of print. A more simply-solved recommendation is to buy a copy of Anne Carson's critical book on Sappho as an accompaniment to this book. Eros the Bittersweet takes you through Sappho's poetry with Carson's particular vision (and her strong classical scholarship) as a guide. Strongly recommended. I'm pleased to find that the official reprint edition by Dalkey Archive is of excellent quality - and is inexpensive. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Sappho Warrior Poet amid Indo-European fascist patriarchy. *by W***E on 5 March 2015* When the she-poet Sappho was alive in 630 BC, the lop sided male-supremacist, misogynist Indo European patriarchal attitude had already terrorized for more than a thousand years the pre-patriarchal, ancient matriarchal, intellectual and sexual and economical autonomy of the Grecian Race of Women. Sappho's poetry shows that matriachal women were kind and wise, were spiritually FAR superior to the utterly inferior, all life desecrating, patriarchal certified fascistic priests and politicians. Sappho lived in times when patriarchal rapine Zeus-ian delusional grandeur was already rampant. Nevertheless, Sappho's poetry strongly echos women's matriarchal intellectual & sexual autonomous freedom that pre-existed the utterly women-hating patriarchal classic Grecian-Indo-European cultural and economical TOTAL disaster. ## Frequently Bought Together - If Not, Winter: The Complete Fragments Of Sappho - Eros the Bittersweet: An Essay: 129 (Princeton Classics) --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.hr/products/68653975-if-not-winter-the-complete-fragments-of-sappho](https://www.desertcart.hr/products/68653975-if-not-winter-the-complete-fragments-of-sappho) --- *Product available on Desertcart Croatia* *Store origin: HR* *Last updated: 2026-05-25*