The Complete Poetry: A Bilingual Edition - Tapa dura

"An astonishing accomplishment. Eshleman's translation is writhing with energy." - Forrest Gander "This is a crucially important translation of one of the poetic geniuses of the twentieth century." - William Rowe, author of Poets of Contemporary Latin America: History and the Inner Life "Only the dauntless perseverance and the love with which the translator has dedicated so many years of his life to this task can explain why the English version conveys, in all its boldness and vigor, the unmistakable voice of Cesar Vallejo." - from the Foreword by Mario Vargas Llosa"

This first translation of the complete poetry of Peruvian Cesar Vallejo (1892-1938) makes available to English speakers one of the greatest achievements of twentieth-century world poetry. Handsomely presented in facing-page Spanish and English, this volume, translated by National Book Award winner Clayton Eshleman, includes the groundbreaking collections "The Black Heralds" (1918), "Trilce" (1922), "Human Poems" (1939), and "Spain, Take This Cup from Me" (1939). Vallejo's poetry takes the Spanish language to an unprecedented level of emotional rawness and stretches its grammatical possibilities. Striking against theology with the very rhetoric of the Christian faith, Vallejo's is a tragic vision - perhaps the only one in the canon of Spanish-language literature - in which salvation and sin are one and the same. This edition includes notes on the translation and a fascinating translation memoir that traces Eshleman's long relationship with Vallejo's poetry. There is an introduction and chronology that provide further insights into Vallejo's life and work.