Ballad of the Blood / Balada De La Sangre: The Poems of Maria Elena Cruz Varela / Los Poemas De Maria Elena Cruz Varela (English, Spanish and Spanish Edition) - Hardcover

Cruz Varela, Maria Elena; Cruz-Bernal, Mairym; Digges, Deborah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 088001427X ISBN 13: 9780880014274

Publisher: Ecco Pr, 1995

Synopsis

"Intense, intimate, often dark collection of poems by dissident Cuban poet imprisoned in early 1990s and now living in Puerto Rico. Translations replicate this highly personal poetic voice with mixed success. En face. Useful biographical introduction by Cruz-Bernal"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

About this title

Language Notes:

Text: English, Spanish (translation)
Original Language: Spanish

From Library Journal:

In 1989, Cruz Varela won the National Union of Cuban Writers and Artists award; two years later that organization renounced her for her manifesto rejecting the "stale ideologies" of Cuban communism. The next year she was lured outside her home and beaten, while her assailants tried to force her to eat her manifesto. Then came her imprisonment for nearly two years. A feminist whose paradox is the "ancestral solitude" of her womanhood, she would "rather plow the vineyards of rage naked" than train for the roles assigned her by men. Although self-taught and the child of peasants, Cruz has written poems that invoke the likes of Sor Juana, Frida Kahlo, Virginia Woolf, and Rabindranath Tagore, and in their bitter heroism invite comparisons with Anna Akhmatova, Primo Levi, and Celan. Unfortunately, the translations are unremarkable, but the poet's message and her art are worthy of consideration. Recommended for larger poetry collections.
Jack Shreve, Allegany Community Coll., Cumberland, Md.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ecco Pr
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 088001427X
• ISBN 13: 9780880014274
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 119