David Mills, 2024 Scott Moncrieff Prize judge, said: ‘Gilles Ortlieb is a wonderful poet whose work scrutinises the landscapes of human intervention, from post-industrial wastelands to marginal urban environments, while detailing the “quasi non-events” that fill our lives, bringing out their beauty, often with sly humour. The translation by Patrick McGuinness and Stephen Romer reaches for the delicacy, subtle shifts and sense of transience in Ortlieb’s work and gets them superbly, so much so that I find myself moving between the original texts and the translations, each adding to the other while I enjoy both.’