ISBN 978-1-935084-82-2
\n 168 pages: $18.00
\n March, 2015<\/p>\n
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Dramatist, novelist, critic and poet Virgilio Pi\u00f1era (1912-1979) was one of the greatest writers of twentieth century Cuba. Little known outside the island, his poems have been called “feverishly tropical” and “champions against indifference.” With a linguistic skill reminiscent of Borges and a gift for metaphor that rivals Neruda and Garc\u00eda Lorca, Pi\u00f1era’s poems celebrate daily life in Cuba with brilliance and humor. Pablo Medina’s remarkable translations from\u00a0The Weight of the Island<\/strong> (La isla en peso<\/strong>)<\/em>, the first book-length collection of Pi\u00f1era’s work in English, now renew Pi\u00f1era’s gifts to the world.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Telluric, absurdist, surrealist, feverishly tropical, Virgilio Pi\u00f1era\u2019s\u00a0The Weight of the Island<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>is a poetic cosmos without parallel. Pi\u00f1era\u2019s voice is disturbing, anguished, dissonant and yet deeply moving. You feel the full emotional and psychological presence of the man in every verse he penned. We can rejoice that the English-speaking public can finally become acquainted with this utterly original poet. Only an artist of Pablo Medina\u2019s gifts could have achieved the miracle of bringing Pi\u00f1 era fully alive into English.\u00a0 <\/p>\n When we read the poetry of Virgilio Pi\u00f1era we must try to identify the invisible or the mystery that lies behind his words, for his language is filled with doubt and irony as the Cuban poet works the regions of despair, desolation and\u00a0 loneliness.\u00a0 Through Medina\u2019s translation\u00a0 the reader can access the invisible and hidden in Pi\u00f1era\u2019s poetry, the mystery between the lines which Pablo Medina deftly uncovers. Medina\u2019s translation of Pi\u00f1era\u2019s\u00a0 poetic words is vivid and sensitive and becomes a recreation of that poetry rather than a mere translation. If Pi\u00f1era as a poet translates his desolate life into a poetry which is fierce and bitter, Medina\u2019s\u00a0 English rendition of that poetry captures the vitality of the original Spanish and conveys the fierceness of a poet who felt imprisoned by\u00a0 \u201cthe cursed condition of water on all sides.\u201d <\/p>\n Virgilio Pi\u00f1era\u2019s poetry occupies the fragile space between sadness and beauty, between disillusion and reality.\u00a0 His poems are quiet champions against indifference, affirmations that seek to both grieve over and honor our human existence. \u00a0Pablo Medina’s translations are enduring, necessary treasures.\u00a0 <\/p>\n Virgilio Pi\u00f1era has been too long ignored amid a louder, at times discordant music of twentieth century Latin American poetry. With these subtly innovative and accessible translations in\u00a0The Weight of the Island<\/em><\/strong>, poet-novelist Pablo Medina now sets Pi\u00f1era in his rightful place on the international stage alongside poet-icons Jos\u00e9 Lezama Lima and Nicol\u00e1s Guill\u00e9n. Pi\u00f1era\u2019s early work is fierce and surrealist, presenting the torrid sensuality and suffocation of his most beautiful island\u2015Cuba\u2015simmering in all its ebullient tropical illusions. Spanning the era when Cuba was a brand new country set free from both the Spanish and Americans to make its own history, moving ahead through hard Revolution then post-Revolution, this smart selection moves back again in time into the more interior and privately experienced, meant also to present Pi\u00f1 era\u2019s more intimate writing, his personal evocations of love and disillusionment, his closely observed poems of absurd social behaviors and mechanical decorum played out against the certainty of mortality. Yet Pi\u00f1era\u2019s poems are all celebrations of life, divine spirit cries that break through the stifling silence of our permanent night. Medina\u2019s remarkable translations in\u00a0The Weight of the Island<\/em>\u00a0now renew his gifts to the world.\u00a0\u00a0 Virgilio Pi\u00f1era
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\n —\u00a0Jaime Manrique<\/strong>, author of\u00a0Cervantes Street<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
\n —Professor Isabel Alvarez Borland<\/strong>, author of\u00a0Cuban America Literature of Exile: From Person to Persona<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
\n —Richard Blanco<\/strong>, Obama inaugural poet and author of\u00a0The Prince of los Cocuyos<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
\n —Douglas Unger\u00a0<\/strong>author of\u00a0Voices from Silence<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\n Trans Pablo Medina
\n9781935084822
\nPi\u00f1era\u2019s\u2026poems are quiet champions against indifference… \u2014Richard Blanco<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[17],"product_tag":[283,124,156,18,30,155],"class_list":{"0":"post-248","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-dialogos","7":"product_tag-bilingual","8":"product_tag-cuba","9":"product_tag-pablo-medina","10":"product_tag-poetry","11":"product_tag-spanish","12":"product_tag-virgilio-pinera","14":"first","15":"instock","16":"taxable","17":"shipping-taxable","18":"purchasable","19":"product-type-simple","20":"berocket_lgv_grid","21":"berocket_lgv_list_grid"},"yoast_head":"\n