Customer Reviews

Jose Lezama Lima: Selections (Poets for the Millennium, 4)

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This is the first time any of Lezama Lima's work has appeared in translation since "Paradiso" was translated in the early 1970s. I believe it is the first time any of his poetry has been transalted for a single volume. So it is a great thing that such a literary light as Lezama should finally appear in English. But did we have to wait so long.

The poems are magnificent and lyrical, dense just as his other writing is, like creeping along in an imaginary jungle. I was also very pleasantly surprised to see the essay by Julio Cortazar, the Argentinian writer, himself a bright star. It appeared in the 1970s in a book entitled "Around the day in 80 Worlds" which translated into English but quickly vanished. It was a rare treat to see it included in the volume.

If you are even remotely interested in the materpieces that have come out of Latin America in the last generation, please have a look a Lezama Lima. He has been ignored for too long.