This book presents translations of poems by the Spanish poet, Rosalía de Castro, who is today considered one of the outstanding figures of nineteeth-century Spanish literature. Her poetry, often compared to that of Emily Dickinson, is characterized by an intimate lyricism, simple diction, and innovative prosody. Included here are a critical introduction, notes to the translations, two of the poet's own autobiographical prologues that have never before been translated, and over one hundred poems translated from both Gallician and Spanish. The selected poems are from de Castro's most important books, Cantares gallgos; Follas novas; and En las orillas del Sar.

Daughter of the Sea is the first of five novels written in Spanish by the Galician Rosalía de Castro (1837-1885). Its characters and events reflect the young author's concern for the Galician people, particularly those of the coastal area, and for women. In this story of passion and violence, cloaked in a supposedly romantic style, Castro joins other nineteenth-century women authors in denouncing economic and social injustice. This is the first translation of her fiction, and it brings to English-speaking readers a spirit that is comparable to George Sand, Madame de Staël, and the Brontës.

"Of all the differentiated regions comprising contemporary Spain, Galicia is possibly the most deeply marked by political, economic and cultural inequities throughout the centuries. Processes of national construction in the region have been patchily successful. However, Galicia's cultural distinctness is easily recognizable to the observer, from the language spoken in the region to the specific forms of the Galician built landscape, with its mixture of indigenous, imported and hybrid elements. The present volume offers English-language readers an in-depth introduction to the integral aspects of Galician cultural history, from pre-historical times to the present day. Whilst attention is given to the traditional areas of medieval culture, language, contemporary history and politics, the book also privileges compelling contemporary perspectives on cinema, architecture, the city of Santiago de Compostela and the urban qualities of Galician culture today." -- Provided by the publisher.

Rosalia de Castro (1837-1885) is considered the founder of modern Galician literature. She wrote three major books of poetry: two in Galician, Galician Songs and New Leaves, and one in Spanish, On the Banks of the Sar. Nourished by the popular songs the author heard around her, Galician Songs was first published in 1863 and dedicated on 17 May, the date that a hundred years later, in 1963, would become and has remained Galician Literature Day, when the work of a particular Galician author is celebrated. Galician Songs marks the first full publication of any of Rosalia de Castro's books of poetry in English and is accompanied by a translator's introduction that argues for the importance and contemporaneity of the author's work and poetics, not just in Galician, but in English.

New Leaves confronts the conundrum of human existence and the injustices suffered by those left behind in the fight (flight) for (economic) survival. Rosalia de Castro is our contemporary in our times of migration. New Leaves was her second and last major work of poetry in the Galician language, here presented in Erin Moure's translation."

This book presents the first feminist translation of Rosalía de Castro’s seminal poetic anthology En las orillas del Sar [On the Edge of the River Sar] (1884). Rosalía de Castro (1837–1885) was an artist of vast poetic vision. Her understanding of human nature and her deep sensitivity to the injustices suffered by women and by such marginalized peoples as those of her native region, Galicia, are manifest in verses of universal yet rarely translated significance. An outspoken proponent of both women’s rights and her region’s cultural and political autonomy, Castro used her poetry as a vehicle through which to decry the crushing hardships both groups endured as Spain vaulted between progressive liberal and conservative reactionary political forces throughout the nineteenth century. Depending upon what faction held sway in the nation at any given time during Castro’s truncated literary career, her works were either revered as revolutionary or reviled as heretical for the views they espoused. Long after her death by uterine cancer in 1885, Castro was excluded from the pantheon of Spanish literature by Restoration society for her unorthodox views. Compellingly, the poet’s conceptualization of the individual and the national self as informed by gender, ethnicity, class, and language echoes contemporary scholars of cultural studies who seek to broaden present-day definitions of national identity through the incorporation of precisely these same phenomena. Thanks to the most recent works in Rosalian and Galician studies, we are now able to recuperate and reevaluate Rosalía de Castro’s poems in their original languages for the more radical symbolism and themes they foreground related to gender, sexuality, race and class as they inform individual and national identities. However, although Castro’s poetic corpus is widely accessible in its original languages, these important features of her verses have yet to be given voice in the small number of English translations of only a sub-set of her works that have been produced in the last century. As a result, our understanding of Castro’s potential contributions to contemporary world poetries, gender studies, Galician and more broadly cultural studies is woefully incomplete. An English translation of Castro’s works that is specifically feminist in its methodological orientation offers a unique and thought-provoking means by which to fill this void.