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I am currently completing a new rhymed translation of Christine de Pisan's Hundred Ballads (Les Cents Ballades), which will be published shortly. I am continuing with a translation of her Rondeaux, in order to give fuller representation to her lyric poetry, which along with her prose works gives her fair claim to the title of the greatest female author of her age, and indeed the greatest since Sappho before her.

She is learned, witty, with a strong poetic style, and in full command of the ballad and rondeaux forms. If I were to draw a parallel with a comparable female figure in a different literary medium, it would be Jane Austen, also fully in command of wit, style and form. The first truly professional female writer of Medieval Europe, she was a pioneer but also a consummate poet, fully equal in ability to the male poets of her time, and one with whom it is worth becoming better acquainted. You can read more about her on Wikipedia here, in anticipation!