The work of Yves Bonnefoy, a poet, critic, and translator, is philosophical in nature and difficult to penetrate. He has written meditations on the themes of the immobility of matter and the power of language. Influenced by such German philosophers as Hegel and Heidegger Bonnefoy reflects in his poetry a sense of tragic anguish, often through the use of understatement. Bonnefoy's principal poetic works include On the Motion and Immobility of Douve (1953), a philosophical meditation on the value of language, and Words in Stone (1965). He has written essays on art history and poetry in L'Improbable and La Seconde Simplicite. As a translator, Bonnefoy is well known for his renderings of… Shakespeare into French including Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Henry IV, and A Winter's Tale.
Wendy Doniger is the Mircea Eliade Professor of the History of Religions in the Divinity School and a professor in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations and the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. She is the author of numerous books, including, most recently, The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was.