Essential writings from the catalyst of the Latin American experimental tradition For the first time in English, readers can now evaluate the extraordinary breadth of César Vallejo's diverse oeuvre that, in addition to poetry, includes magazine and newspaper articles, chronicles, political reports, fictions, plays, letters, and notebooks. Edited by the translator Joseph Mulligan, Selected Writings follows Vallejo down his many winding roads, from Santiago de Chuco in highland Peru, to the coastal cities of Trujillo and Lima, on to Paris, Madrid, Moscow, and Leningrad. This repeated border-crossing also plays out on the textual level, as Vallejo wrote prolifically across genres and, in many cases, created poetic space in extra-literary modes. Informed by a vast body of scholarly research, this compendium synthesizes a restored literary corpus and—in bold translations that embrace the idiosyncratic spirit of the author's writing—puts forth a new representation of this essential figure of twentieth-century Latin American literature as an indispensable alternative to the European avant-garde. Compiling well known versions with over eighty percent of the text presented in English translation for the first time, Selected Writings is both a trove of and tribute to Vallejo's multifaceted work. Includes translations by the editor and Clayton Eshleman, Pierre Joris, Suzanne Jill Levine, Nicole Peyrafitte, Michael Lee Rattigan, William Rowe, Eliot Weinberger, and Jason Weiss.

A highly-praised translation of a seminal work of Spanish literature is once again available.

"César Vallejo is the greatest Catholic poet since Dante—and by Catholic I mean universal."—Thomas Merton, author of The Seven Storey Mountain "An astonishing accomplishment. Eshleman's translation is writhing with energy."—Forrest Gander, author of Eye Against Eye "Vallejo has emerged for us as the greatest of the great South American poets—a crucial figure in the making of the total body of twentieth-century world poetry. In Clayton Eshleman's spectacular translation, now complete, this most tangled and most rewarding of poets comes at us full blast and no holds barred. A tribute to the power of the imagination as it manifests through language in a world where meaning has always to be fought for and, as here, retrieved against the odds."—Jerome Rothenberg, co-editor of Poems for the Millennium "Every great poet should be so lucky as to have a translator as gifted and heroic as Clayton Eshleman, who seems to have gotten inside Vallejo's poems and translated them from the inside out. The result is spectacular, or as one poem says, 'green and happy and dangerous.'"—Ron Padgett, translator of Complete Poems by Blaise Cendrars "César Vallejo was one of the essential poets of the twentieth century, a heartbreaking and groundbreaking writer, and this gathering of the many years of imaginative work by Clayton Eshleman is one of Vallejo's essential locations in the English tongue."—Robert Hass, former Poet Laureate of the United States "This is a crucially important translation of one of the poetic geniuses of the twentieth century." —William Rowe, author of Poets of Contemporary Latin America: History and the Inner Life "Only the dauntless perseverance and the love with which the translator has dedicated so many years of his life to this task can explain why the English version conveys, in all its boldness and vigor, the unmistakable voice of César Vallejo."—Mario Vargas Llosa

The Translation judges for the National Book Awards--Richard Miller, Alastair Reid, Eliot Weinberger--cited Clayton Eshleman and Jose Rubia Barcia's translation of Cesar Vallejo's The Complete Posthumous Poetry as follows: "This, the first National Book Award to be given to a translation of modern poetry, is a recognition of Clayton Eshleman's seventeen-year apprenticeship to perhaps the most difficult poetry in the Spanish language. Eshleman and his present collaborator, Jose Rubia Barcia, have not only rendered these complex poems into brilliant and living English, but have also established a definitive Spanish test based on Vallejo's densely rewritten manuscripts. In recreating this modern master in English, they have also made a considerable addition to poetry in our language."

This is the first biography of Latin America's most important poet. the Peruvian César Vallejo. It traces the important events of his life and evaluates his poetry, fiction, theatre, political essays and journalism. This is the first biography of Latin America's most important poet, the Peruvian César Vallejo, who was born in an Andean village, Santiago de Chuco, on 16 March 1892 and died in Paris on 15 April 1938. It traces the important events of his life - becoming a poet in Peru, falling in love with Mirtho in Trujillo, writing Trilce which would transform for ever the avant-garde in the Spanish-speaking world, fleeing to Paris in the summer of 1923 afterbeing accused of burning down Carlos Santa María's house in Santiago de Chuco, falling in love with Georgette Philippart and then with communism, writing his Poemas humanos (Human Poems) and then, shortly before hisdeath, writing his moving poems inspired by the Spanish Civil War, España, aparta de mí este cáliz (Spain, Take this Chalice from Me). This book also provides an objective evaluation of Vallejo's poetry, fiction, theatre, political essays and journalism. Stephen M. Hart is Professor of Latin American Film, Literature and Culture, School of European Languages, Culture and Society, University College London.