Jos&233 Lezama Lima Selections [Paperback]

Recognized as one of the most influential Latin American writers of the twentieth century, Jos? Lezama Lima, born in Cuba in 1910, is associated with the Latin American neo-baroque and has influenced several generations of writers in and out of Cuba, including such prominent poets as Severo Sarduy and N?stor Perlongher. Lezama Lima's vision of America in a continental sense stands at the fertile confluence of indigenous, African, and European influences. A crucial experimental writer, he has been known in English chiefly for his novelParadiso,while little of his poetry has been translated. This anthology is a comprehensive introduction to Lezama Lima's poetry. It presents for the first time in English a generous selection of his poems, as well as an interview, essays, and critical work on his poetics. Ernesto Livon-Grosman has selected elegant and precise translations by James Irby, G.J. Racz, Nathaniel Tarn, and Roberto Tejada. His insightful introduction places the poet in the wider context of Cuban and Latin American cultural history.

Ernesto Livon-Grosmanis Assistant Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at Boston College. He is the translator ofCharles Olson: Poemas(1997) and the editor ofThe XUL Reader: An Anthology of Argentine Poetry(1997). His most recent book isGeograf?as imaginarias: El relato de viaje y la construcci?n del paisaje patag?nico(2003).

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Transcending National PoeticsErnesto Livon-Grosman
Key to Translators

POEMS
From Enemigo Rumor (1941)
From Dador (1960)
From The Fragments Drawn by Charm (1977)
Surprised

DOCUMENTS
Confluences (1968)Jos? Lezama Lima
Interview with Jos? Lezama Lima (1964)Armando Alvarez Bravo
To Reach Lezama Lima (1967)Julio Cort?zar
Letter from Lezama (1969)Severo Sarduy

Selected Bibliography
Credits

A delightful and informativl/