The Burial at Thebes. Sophocles' 'Antigone'.

First edition. Sm. 8vo. Pp. [viii], 56. Publisher's black paper boards, titled in gilt to spine; black endpapers. Black and gold jacket design by Jan Hendrix (priced £12.99 to front flap).

A verse translation of Sophocles' fifth century B.C. tragedy, Antigone, commissioned to mark the centenary of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and where it premiered on March 31st, 2004. Partly inspired by Bush and Blair's 2003 war on Iraq – in particular the argument that you are either for state security or an advocate of terrorism – Heaney's version adroitly parries a Hegelian dialectic between the individual and the state, as language ceaselessly speaks truth to power. Awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.