100 Refutations | Peru | Poetry | Spanish
June, 2018Alberto Guillén (1897-1935) was a Peruvian writer and political activist whose body of work includes, among others, several collections of poetry as well as a short novel and a collection of essays.
100 Refutations | Peru | Poetry | Spanish
June, 2018Manuel Gonzáles Prada (1844-1918) was an influential figure in Peruvian culture and politics during his lifetime. His essays were known for being full of irony and humor, and his innovative poetry has been described as a precursor to Modernism. In addition to his writing and political careers, Prada spent several years working as the Director of the National Library of Peru.
100 Refutations | Peru | Poetry | Spanish
April, 2018José Santos Chocano (1875-1934) was a prolific poet and political activist considered to be a leading figure of the Latin American Modernism movement. In 1922, Chocano was recognized by the Peruvian government as poet laureate.
100 Refutations | Peru | Poetry | Spanish
April, 2018César Vallejo was born in Santiago de Chuco, Peru in 1892 and died in Paris in 1938. According to the Antologia de la Poesia Hispanoamericana, “In 1923, after publishing his second book, Trilce, which placed him at the forefront of the poetic Peruvian vanguard, he left for Europe never to return.” The death of his mother, a bohemian reputation, and an “unfortunate incident which landed him in prison for four months,” are often cited as the reasons for his self-imposed exile. “After a long poetic silence, as if urged by the presentiment of death, he wrote—in just a few months—the 'Human Poems' which would be published posthumously [… and which] you can barely speak [of] as poetry, they are the sharp and torn expression of the pain of, not the individual, but our species.”
Czar Gutiérrez's book-length poem La caída del equlibrista (The Fall of the Tightrope Walker), originally published in 1997, is divided into nine acts, each of which depicts a moment in the tragic fall of its central character, the eponymous tightrope walker. One could say the poem enacts its speaker's attempt to reconnect through a sustained lyric to God, to his parents and loved ones, and to his own psychic principle. If we pay heed to one of Gutiérrez's most important influences Nietzsche, then it's possible to see ourselves as a tightrope walker, moving from one pole to another, seeking, as the book's epigram announces, fraternity over the abyss (Paz).
- Nick Rattner
The Brooklyn Rail welcomes you to our web-exclusive section InTranslation, where we feature unpublished translations of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and dramatic writing. Published since April 2007, InTranslation is a venue for outstanding work in translation and a resource for translators, authors, editors, and publishers seeking to collaborate.
We seek exceptional unpublished English translations from all languages.
Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry: Manuscripts of no longer than 20 pages (double-spaced).
Plays: Manuscripts of no longer than 30 pages (in left-justified format).