Niall's Weblog

I’m a big fan of Baudelaire’s poetry. I am particularly fond of his interest in conveying beauty through typically repulsive imagery – e.g. Une Charogne which features vivid description of a decomposing human body.
While I enjoy reading the original French, I’ve recently discovered a fantastic online resource – http://fleursdumal.org/. This site not only [...]

Just yesterday I was sent a link by a good friend to the English translation of a short story called Ward No. 6 by Anton Chekhov.
I had never read anything by Chekhov before, but I was familiar with a number of Russian authors – Gogol, Dostoevsky, Bulgakov, Tolstoy – all of whom I enjoyed greatly.
Chekhov’s [...]