Poets in Romania and in Ireland have been drawn deeply into the social and political lives of their countries. During the Ceaucescu years in Romania it was the poets who dared to transmit covert messages of protest, and during the December 1989 Revolution many of them risked their lives on the streets. In Ireland, poets gave voice to the sentiments of the independence movement early in this century and during recent years their work has been read for insights on the violent sectarian divisions in the North. There have been many contacts between poets of the two countries both before and after 1989. Bloodaxe published Marin Sorescu's Biggest Egg in the World in 1986 based on translations inspired by his contacts with poets in Belfast. With the new freedom of communication, poets have been corresponding and sometimes meeting together for translation sessions in Romania and Ireland. This Bloodaxe anthology of contemporary Romanian poetry is the outcome of a strangely imaginative collaboration between poets from these two countries on either fringe of the new Europe.Ten leading Irish poets have produced their own distinctive versions of poems by ten leading Romanian poets.

A companion volume of translations of the Irish poets by their Romanian partners was published by Univers in Bucharest. The poets matched are:Ciaran Carson * Stefan Augustin DoinasSeamus Heaney * Ana BlandianaBrendan Kennelly * Mircea DinescuMichael Longley * Ileana MalancioiuThomas McCarthy * Daniela CrasnaruMedbh McGuckian * Mircea CartarescuDerek Mahon * Cezar BaltagPaula Meehan * Mihai UrsachiPaul Muldoon * Marin SorescuEiléan NÍ Chuilleanáin * Denisa Comanescu.