UMass Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press

Selected Poems of Nicolás Guillén

Translated and edited by Roberto Márquez
and David Arthur McMurray

Second Edition
With a new preface by
Roberto Márquez

A bilingual edition of work by one of Cuba’s most important poets

The Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén, who was born in the eastern province of Camagüey in 1902, died in 1989. This new edition of his selected poems, reissued thirty years after its original publication, includes an extensive, new introductory essay by Roberto Márquez, one of the original translators and a leading authority on Caribbean and Latin American literature and culture.

Celebrated as Cuba's national poet, Guillén also attracted an international following, as evidenced by these tributes written after his death:

"In a continent of poets, Nicolás Guillén stood out above the crowd. In Castro's Cuba he had no peer. He belonged to the great generation of Latin American writers—Pablo Neruda being the most famous—for whom politics and literature were inextricably linked. . . . Guillén was . . . a great actor, a wonderful declaimer of his own and others' poetry, and always a bit larger than life. But it was chiefly through his influence and support that the black element in Cuban culture, politics, and society was given official encouragement and support."

(Manchester) Guardian
"One of Latin America's best-known writers and the man who introduced African and Latin musical rhythms into verse. . . . Guillén's work celebrated Cuba's multiracial and ethnic mix as well as the 1959 communist revolution. . . . Prensa Latina said word of his death sent a 'shock wave' through Cuba's people, many of whom knew his verses by heart."

Boston Globe
"Guillén, the national poet of Cuba, was often described as one of the finest poets of the Spanish language. He was certainly outstanding among Latin American poets for his folk-poetry reflecting the speech rhythms of ordinary people and the rich ethnic lore of his island. His best-known contribution to the poetry of Latin America was the interaction of African rhythms and Latin music, well represented by his development of the 'son' as a poetic form—the son (or black sound) being in the 1930s an established Cuban dance."

Independent
"Guillén . . . was one of the three or four major Latin American poets of this century, and the most important of all those of the Negroist or Afro-Cuban tendency. His work was also widely known in Spain, where he was held in very high esteem."

(London) Times

Roberto Márquez is professor of Latin American studies at Mount Holyoke College.

David Arthur McMurray, at the time of original publication, taught in the department of comparative literature at the University of Alberta.

Poetry / Latin American Studies / Black Studies
256 pp.
$24.95s paper, ISBN 978-1-55849-410-7
October 2003
To order the paperback edition online, click on "ADD TO CART"
To order by mail or fax, click here for an order form

about placing orders on our secure server
ADD TO CART | VIEW CART | CHECKOUT