Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry

Latin Americans have written some of the world's finest poetry in the twentieth century, as the Nobel Prizes awarded to Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, and Octavio Paz attest. Yet this rich literary production has never been gathered into a single volume that attempts to represent the full range and the most important writers-until now. Here, under one cover, are the major poets and their major works, which appear both in the original language (Spanish or Portuguese) and in excellent English translations.

The poems selected include the most famous representative poems of each poetic tradition, accompanied by other poems that represent the best of that tradition and of each poet's work within it. Tapscott's selections cover the full range, from the Modernist generation though the Mexican Revolutionary post-Moderns and the Vanguardist poets to very contemporary younger writers of political and experimental commitments. In all, eighty-five poets, including Pablo Neruda, Nicanor Parra, Octavio Paz, Gabriela Mistral, Nicolás Guillén, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Carlos Pellicer, César Vallejo, and Cecília Meireles, and over 400 poems are included, often in translations by some of North America's most esteemed poets.

About the Author

Stephen Tapscott is Professor of Literature at MIT. He translated Pablo Neruda’s 100 Love Sonnets / Cien sonetos de amor (UT Press, 1986).

Review

A very rich and illuminating new anthology that covers the entire sweep of Latin American poetry in the 20th century.... For everyone who thinks only of Pablo Neruda when they think of Latin American poetry, or of Neruda and Cesar Vallejo and Octavio Paz, this book will be a revelation. ― Washington Post Book World

One can say positively of this anthology that it will prove a timely stimulus to seek out the poetry of a number of lesser known Latin American writers. ― Times Literary Supplement.