John Ash

"In the Wake of the Day" is a book of memories and journeys; from the chaotic energy of urban life in modern Istanbul, where John Ash lives, to the ruins of vanished civilisations; from personal incident to the narratives and vacancies of cultures. Ash inhabits the fertile and ambiguous territory where East and West meet. We 'know and do not know' the past. In an 'imperial city without empire, place of paradox', time too becomes fluid. The ancient, half-imagined past of Ur, Alexandria, Cappadocia coexists with a contemporary world in which 'tank tracks are driven over Babylon'. At the centre of this collection are John Ash's versions of poems by the great Alexandrian C. P. Cavafy. Working with Cavafy's voice, Ash expresses his own urbane intelligence.

This groundbreaking book fills a large hole in the literature for one of the most diverse and least known areas of Africa. Ethiopia and Eritrea have a fascinating and unique avifauna. Poorly known in comparison to many parts of Africa, knowledge on bird distribution in the two countries is scattered throughout the literature. For more than 35 years, the authors have been painstakingly collecting bird records in the region and plotting them on half-degree maps, including published records, data from museum specimens, sightings from their own extensive travels and, more recently, records from the many birdwatchers that now visit Ethiopia. The resulting atlas provides, for the first time, an accurate assessment of the distribution of each of the 870 species known from the two countries, including valuable information on breeding. The succinct text summarises the results and discusses distribution to subspecies level. Extensive introductory chapters cover topics such as topography, geology, vegetation, climate, habitats, conservation, migration, breeding seasons, bird ringing, and the history of ornithology in the region.

Writing of his fourth collection in the same review, Richard Tillinghast said: 'John Ash is a greatly gifted poet who moves easily from the hieratic to the demotic.' And John Ashbery has spoken of his poetry as 'resonant with gorgeous imagery that distracts one from the super-lucid, rational argument that quietly continues to assert itself. It seems both familiar and strange, noble and funny, romantic and level-headed.' Among contemporary British poets he is distinguished for his wit, his formal and thematic ambition, and his Byzantine range.