Purgatory: A Bilingual Edition / Edition 1

by Raul Zurita, Anna Deeny, C. D. Wright

Overview

Raúl Zurita’s Purgatory, a landmark in contemporary Latin American poetry, records the physical, cultural, and spiritual violence perpetrated against the Chilean people under Pinochet’s military dictatorship (1973–1990) in the fiercely inventive voice of a postmodern master. This beautiful en face edition, superbly translated by Anna Deeny, brings to English-language readers an indispensable volume written by one of the most important living poets writing in Spanish today. Zurita was a 24-year-old student in Valparaíso when, on the morning of the coup, he was arrested, detained, and tortured. Conceived as the first text of a Dantean trilogy that includes Anteparaíso (Anteparadise) and La Vida Nueva (The New Life), Purgatory is his anguished response to Chile’s violent recent history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520259737
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	11/02/2009
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	136
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Raúl Zurita, considered by many to be the heir to Pablo Neruda, is one of Latin America's most radical, influential, and prominent poets. Anna Deeny is a doctoral candidate in Latin American Literature at the University of California, Berkeley.

Table of Contents

Foreword by C. D. Wright
Preface: Some Words for This Edition
Purgatory
Afterword by Anna Deeny
Notes

Editorial Reviews

Zurita is seen by many to be the most important poet in Chile and the inheritor of Neruda’s legacy. . . . An important book.

Poetry Foundation

A visually stunning book of unforgettable poems.

Harvard Gazette

A bilingual edition of the Chilean poet's landmark sequence, originally published in 1979, during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. . . . Includes a generous set of explanatory notes.

Foreword Reviews

Purgatory is beautifully produced, well translated, and as lyrically chilling as when it was first written in the shadow of Pinochet’s 17-year dictatorship of Chile. His collection is organically political . . . and his experimentation with incorporated imagery is especially noteworthy.

Molossus

Chilean poet Raul Zurita’s first book is back in print. It remains one of the most important and dynamic works of contemporary Latin American poetry. . . This sequence of startling and painful poems combines visual and concrete poetry with short, lyrical texts that release the forces of suffering until they become the poetic body of triumph. Every young poet who wishes to find out what a poem does needs to read and study this book. The lessons found here will redefine poetic commitment.

Bloomsbury Review

“Zurita is seen by many to be the most important poet in Chile and the inheritor of Neruda’s legacy. . . . An important book.

Poetry Foundation/ Harriet

“Important and dynamic. . . . Every young poet . . . needs to read and study this book. The lessons found here will redefine poetic commitment.

The Bloomsbury Review

"An exciting literary event."--Publishers Weekly

"Important and dynamic. . . . Every young poet . . . needs to read and study this book. The lessons found here will redefine poetic commitment."--The Bloomsbury Review

"Zurita is seen by many to be the most important poet in Chile and the inheritor of Neruda's legacy. . . . An important book."--Poetry Foundation/ Harriet

"Beautifully produced, well translated, and as lyrically chilling as when it was first written in the shadow of Pinochet's . . . dictatorship."--Molossus

From the Publisher

In a voice highly attuned to paradox and instability, Zurita confronts the traumatic upheaval brought on by Augusto Pinochet's 1973–1990 U.S.-backed military dictatorship over the Chilean people. Zurita's electrifying poems recount a multitude of transformations and philosophical reorientations (“Today I moo with my head about to fall/ as the church bells' mournful clanging/ says that milk goes to market”) brought on by this terrifying chapter in Latin American history. A central section, “The Desert of Atacama,” offers an array of shifting perspectives on “the convergent and divergent landscapes” where the self, in a Whitmanesque turn, both disappears and contains multitudes: ”my form begins to touch your form and your form/ that other form like that until all of Chile is nothing but/ one form with open arms: a long form crowned with thorns.” Lucidly translated by Deeny (whose afterword insightfully contextualizes Zurita within the broader Latin American poetics), this bilingual edition of a politically and formally revolutionary text is an exciting literary event. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly