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One of the great poetic innovators of the 20th century, the Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo now has a translator worthy of his genius
The Peruvian poet César Vallejo—one of Latin America’s most famous poets—was involved in various literary circles and began publishing his poems in 1914 in magazines, after discovering the works of Walt Whitman, the French symbolists, and the modernist Nicaraguan poet Rubén Dario. He brought out his first book of poems in 1919, Los heraldos negros, and in 1922, he published his famous Trilce, which met a cool reception. Vallejo spent many years of his life in Europe—in Paris and Spain. Like many of the surrealists, he became a Marxist, and he was an ardent supporter of the Republican cause during the Spanish Civil War. In his poems, Vallejo poignantly describes human misery, isolation, and anguish. As the translator Margaret Jull Costa explains: “Vallejo edited and redrafted and honed his poetry. This is the only way in which he could describe the antithetical, paradoxical, oxymoronic universe he was living in, by using language at full tilt, making it perform all kinds of acrobatics. The resulting poems often defy interpretation…” This marvelous new bilingual selection of poems spanning his career up to his early death confirms Robert Hass’s assessment that Vallejo was “one of the essential poets of the twentieth century, a heartbreaking and groundbreaking writer.”César Vallejo
César Abraham Vallejo Mendoza (1892–1938) was a Peruvian poet, writer, playwright, and journalist. Although he published only three books of poetry during his lifetime, he is considered one of the great poetic innovators of the 20th century in any language.
Poet and essayist Clayton Eshleman is a recipient of the National Book Award and the Landon Translation Prize. He is the cotranslator of César Vallejo: The Complete Posthumous Poetry and Aimé Césaire: The Collected Poetry, both from UC Press. Among Mario Vargas Llosa's prestigious literary awards are the National Critics' Prize, the Peruvian National Prize, and the Miguel de Cervantes Prize. He is the author of more than twenty books. Efrain Kristal is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles. Stephen M. Hart is Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at University College, London.
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Margaret Jull Costa
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MARGARET JULL COSTA has been a translator of Spanish and Portuguese literature since 1987. Among the other authors she has translated are Paulo Coelho, Fernando Pessoa, José Saramago, Bernardo Atxaga and Javier Marías. Her work has brought her various awards, the most recent being the 2008 PEN/Book-of-the-Month Award and the 2008 Oxford Weidenfeld Prize for her translation of Eça de Queiroz’s masterpiece The Maias.
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