In 1999, Queen's Gate, Pia Tafdrup's ninth book, won Scandinavia's most prestigious literary award, the Nordic Council Literature Prize. Now available in English in a lovely rendition by David McDuff, English language readers can experience this outstanding poet's celebrated collection. "From water you have come, " writes Tafdrup, creating her own myth through a sequence of highly sensual poems centered on water in all its forms. This is a composite picture of the basic elements of the life-cycle of nature and man, mirrored through a conceptual world that takes the body as its axis, in poetic language of great visual and emotional power. The poems are written from a female point of view, and reflect the whole story of human life and suffering.