The Infinite's Ash - Tapa dura

Victor Rodriguez Nunez is one of today's most outstanding Cuban writers, although he has lived and worked outside of the island for nearly two decades, first in Nicaragua and Colombia and, since 1995, in the USA. The present collection, based on his selected poems "With a Strange Scent of World: First Anthology, 1978-1998" (Havana, 2004), offers a representative sample, as well as a rewriting, of his early poetic work, full of vivid images from the poet's youth and of both rural and urban Cuba.In an interview, Nunez described his search for 'a poetry that is...participatory yet not political...communicative yet not explicit...dialogic yet not conversational, Cuban yet not essentially nationalist...' and in her introduction to this volume, Katherine Hedeen provides us with background detail that helps to set the poet's work in context. In this first of Nunez's books to appear in English (in Katherine Hedeen's skilful translation), we see poems that are at once committed and experimental, where every limit is challenged, and where emotion and lucidity come together.

VICTOR RODRIGUEZ NUNEZ is one of Cuba's most noteworthy contemporary writers. He has published eleven books of poetry, many of them recipients of literary awards, including the David Prize (Cuba, 1980), the Plural Prize (Mexico, 1983), the EDUCA Prize (Costa Rica, 1995), the Renacimiento Prize (Spain, 2000), and most recently the Fray Luis de Leon Prize (Spain 2005) and the Leonor Poetry Prize (Spain 2006). His poems have appeared in 'The Kenyon Review', 'Denver Quarterly', 'Mid-American Review', 'Chelsea', 'New York Quarterly', 'The Literary Review', 'New England Review', 'Circumference', 'Salt Hill', and many others internationally. He is an Associate Professor of Spanish at Kenyon College.KATHERINE M. HEDEEN has a doctorate in Hispanic Literatures from The University of Texas at Austin. She is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Kenyon College. She specializes in Latin American poetry and has researched about and translated numerous contemporary authors from the region.