Judith Thurman began contributing to The New Yorker in 1987, and became a staff writer in 2000. She writes about fashion and books, and her subjects have included André Malraux, Elsa Schiaparelli, and Cristóbal Balenciaga. Thurman is the author of "Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller,” which won the 1983 National Book Award for Non-Fiction, and "Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette,” (1999), winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Biography, and the Salon Book Award for biography. The Dinesen biography served as the basis for Sydney Pollack’s movie "Out of Africa.” A collection of her New Yorker essays, "Cleopatra’s Nose,” was published in 2007.
Thurman lives in New York.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/bios/judith_thurman/search?contributorName=judith%20thurman#ixzz0tGcHWq00

 

 

The night wind

rips a cloud sheet

into rags,

then rubs, rubs

the October moon

until it shines

like a brass doorknob.

 

 

 the wind

scatters

a flock of sparrows –

a handful

of small change

spilled suddenly

from the cloud’s pocket.

 

 

 

Нічний вітер

Розриває

захмарене простирадло

на ганчірки,

потім тре ними

жовтневий місяць,

аж поки він не засяє,

як мідна ручка дверей.

 

Вітер

розганяє

зграю горобців –

 

жменя дрібних монет

посипалася раптом

 з кишені хмари.