This from the March issue of Library Journal.
The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry.
ed. & tr. by Mark Weiss. U.S.: Univ. of
California Pr. 2009. 624p. ISBN 978-0-520-25894-5. pap. $29.95. POETRY
Cuba’s poets have always found their place within
the constructs of history, yet we remain naïve about these
The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry.
brilliant writers and the works that they have
beautifully created, until now. From the depths
of the Cuban psyche, editor and translator Weiss
delicately gathers six decades of Cuban poetry in
this bilingual anthology. This literary feat, an
act of opposition to censorship, inevitably
presents the works of poets who have had to fight
for their independence. While many Cuban writers
were forced into exile, their literature somehow
flourished on the island and across the sea,
becoming a force in the midst of war and
communism. Despite ill-timed acts of bigotry and
the crude editing imposed by the Cuban
government, they prevailed, candidly sharing
their messages at a time when homosexuality was
outlawed and antirevolutionary opinions were
suppressed. Represented within this book are
poets from the mid-1900s to the present, such as
Nicolás Guillén, Cintio Vitier, Nancy Morejón,
and many others. This is a prized collection of
Cuban poetry. Recommended for all libraries and
bookstores.Rick Villalobos, Villa Park P.L., IL
Announcing The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban
Poetry (University of California Press).
http://go.ucpress.edu/WholeIsland
"Not since the 1982 publication of Paul Auster's
Random House Book of Twentieth Century French
Poetry has a bilingual anthology so effectively
broadened the sense of poetic terrain outside the
United States and also created a superb
collection of foreign poems in English. There is
nothing else like it." John Palattella in The
Nation
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