Yves Bonnefoy (born in 1923) is one of the most famous modern French poets, the author of seven books of poetry, numerous short stories and novellas, essays and articles on problems of poetics, literary translation and fine arts. Laureate of the Montaigne Prize, French Academy, etc.; Doctor honoris causa of several European and American universities. Since 1981, professor at the College de France (the second time, after Paul Valéry, that a poet has been awarded this honorary title). Yves Bonnefoy’s first collection of essays, “The Incredible,” was published in 1959, the second, “A Dream in Mantua,” in 1967. During the second edition of these books in 1980 and 1992. the author combined them under the general title “Incredible” and made minor changes to the texts. The published translations are based on the latest version (1992, Mercure de France). They represent, so to speak, the “first period” of Bonnefoy’s essayism (1953–1967). Of the eight essays that made up “The Incredible,” five were chosen for the Russian edition (as well as the prose poem that concludes the book, “Thanksgiving”), and of the fifteen essays that made up “The Dream in Mantua,” eight were chosen (as well as the story that concludes the book, “ Seven Fires", an early example of the genre, which Bonnefoy himself calls "stories about this"). Translations of "Thanksgiving", the essay "Byzantium", a fragment of the essay "French Poetry and the Principle of Identity" and the essay "Under the October Sun", previously published in periodicals , revised for this edition.