Changing Centuries
By Fernando AlegrķaTranslated by Stephen Kessler
ISBN: 0-935480-37-4
Price: $12.00
Pages: 136
"Fernando Alegrķa, critic
and novelist, reveals his talents as a poet in this bilingual
Spanish/English collection of thirty-eight poems.
Characterized by a diversity of tone, imagery, and form,
the selections include intimately personal lyrics on home and
a grandson as well as public, politically committed verse
extolling fallen heroes. With gentle modulations, his voice
covers a broad spectrum that ranges from the nostalgic to the
prophetic. An important collection, which will appropriately
complement Alegrķa's The Chilean Spring."
--Choice
"Over a period that spans
nearly fifty years, Fernando Alegrķa has become one of Latin
America's foremost poets and novelists, and his essays
are essential contributions to the study of Latin American
literature...Passion drives the poetry in Changing
Centuries. Rage and love load the poems with images
successively transformed by metaphor. Though they sometimes
seem dangerously out of control, the poems in this collection
move at an incredible velocity and go straight for the human
heart."
--Latin American Book Review
"It seems
that for some time we have had a world-class poet living
quietly in our midst, a poet who belongs in the company of
Ritsos, Herbert, Parra. It is difficult to read Alegrķa's
poems without weeping over the fate of Chile, and a lost
world."
--New York Times Book Review