Poetry. SIMPLE VERSES is the first complete English translation of the classic collection VERSOS SENCILLOS, written by the Cuban poet Jose Marti (1853-1895) in the United States during his years of exile and revolutionary struggle. This great political and literary figure of the nineteenth century has been one of the most influential men in all the Americas. A spiritual autobiography, SIMPLE VERSES captures in each poem an experience, a feeling or a moment that formed the poet and the man. The poet, the soldier, the troubadour, the legislator, the searcher for truth, the enraptured and the disenchanted lover, the defender of poetry and its transformer, the genius and the man - all alternate in a modulated and musical flow like life itself, which it embodies. The translations of Manuel Tellechea, a Cuban American living in Union City, New Jersey, have been published by the University of Pittsburgh, Freedom House, Transaction Publishers, and others.

Roberta Fernàndez has gathered the best and most representative examples of fiction, poetry, drama and essay currently being written by Latina writers of the United States. The work is arranged by genre, and topics are as varied as the voices and styles of the writers: the challenge of living in two cultures; experiencing marginality as a result of class, ethnicity, and/or gender; Latina feminism; the celebration of oneÍs culture and its people. Most of the pieces are in English and some are presented bilingually in English and Spanish. A preface and an introduction by the editor and a foreword by the noted critic of Latin American literature, Jean Franco, serve to contextualize the writers and their work; a primary and secondary bibliography serves as an appendix.

José Martí (1853-1895) is the most renowned political and literary figure in the history of Cuba. A poet, essayist, orator, statesman, abolitionist, and the martyred revolutionary leader of Cuba's fight for independence from Spain, Martí lived in exile in New York for most of his adult life, earning his living as a foreign correspondent. Throughout the 1880s and early 1890s, Martí's were the eyes through which much of Latin America saw the United States. His impassioned, kaleidoscopic evocations of that period in U.S. history, the assassination of James Garfield, the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, the execution of the Chicago anarchists, the lynching of the Italians in New Orleans, and much more, bring it rushing back to life. Organized chronologically, this collection begins with his early writings, including a thundering account of his political imprisonment in Cuba at age sixteen. The middle section focuses on his journalism, which offers an image of the United States in the nineteenth century, its way of life and system of government, that rivals anything written by de Tocqueville, Dickens, Trollope, or any other European commentator. Including generous selections of his poetry and private notebooks, the book concludes with his astonishing, hallucinatory final masterpiece, "War Diaries", never before translated into English. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

In 1890, the great Cuban revolutionary leader Jose Marti wrote his most famous poetry, Versos Sencillos, in a small town called Haines Falls in the Catskill Mountains of New York. Sincere and intensely personal in tone, these verses form a unique autobiographical expression yet have world-wide appeal. This dual-language edition of Versos Sencillos offers both the Spanish-language original and a graceful English translation of each poem in the collection. The translation follows the original rhyme scheme where feasible but deliberately chooses meaning over form, staying true to mood and method. In addition to notes on the poems, this edition also includes the particulars of translation and provides a background for the composition of the verses, features lacking in earlier translations. An index of first lines, both English and Spanish, is included. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

José Martí (1853–1895) was the founding hero of Cuban independence. In all of modern Latin American history, arguably only the “Great Liberator” Simón Bolívar rivals Martí in stature and legacy. Beyond his accomplishments as a revolutionary and political thinker, Martí was a giant of Latin American letters, whose poetry, essays, and journalism still rank among the most important works of the region. Today he is revered by both the Castro regime and the Cuban exile community, whose shared veneration of the “apostle” of freedom has led to his virtual apotheosis as a national saint. In José Martí: A Revolutionary Life, Alfred J. López presents the definitive biography of the Cuban patriot and martyr. Writing from a nonpartisan perspective and drawing on years of research using original Cuban and U.S. sources, including materials never before used in a Martí biography, López strips away generations of mythmaking and portrays Martí as Cuba’s greatest founding father and one of Latin America’s literary and political giants, without suppressing his public missteps and personal flaws. In a lively account that engrosses like a novel, López traces the full arc of Martí’s eventful life, from his childhood and adolescence in Cuba, to his first exile and subsequent life in Spain, Mexico City, and Guatemala, through his mature revolutionary period in New York City and much-mythologized death in Cuba on the battlefield at Dos Ríos. The first major biography of Martí in over half a century and the first ever in English, José Martí is the most substantial examination of Martí’s life and work ever published.

Cuba has fought three wars for independence, and still she is not free. This history in verse creates a lyrical portrait of Cuba.