Superliquid Water

Author: Cécile Mainardi

Translators: CJ Nizard & Léon Pradeau

Publisher: Prroblem (2026)

The true structure of a water molecule is a bent, polar shape. Based on experimental and compositional studies by the poet Cécile Mainardi, Superliquid Water is a hustle of fen and foam. Like its eponymous substance, the syntax herein is slippery, pouring into and out of itself, so much so that “superliquid water starts running through the sentence before the sentence even begins.” Expertly translated by cj nizard and Léon Pradeau—the first book of Mainardi to appear in English—these prose poems fathom language as supersaturated and the tangible humid. “Scandalously gushing down the fountain’s basins in baroque offsets,” Pradeau and nizard's translation splashes around in a tide of contextual and linguistic possibility.