5.06.2007

Walcott in Venezuela

Yesterday's Papel Literario in El Nacional was devoted to Derek Walcott, who will be speaking next Saturday in Caracas. This week, I will translate the following essays on Walcott from that issue of Papel Literario:

“Una poética del claroscuro” by Yolanda Pantin
“Es un árbol diferente” by Michaelle Ascencio
“Medusas del Nuevo Mundo” by Lulú Giménez Saldivia
“Derek Walcott” by Igor Barreto

A note in this issue mentions what might be the first Latin American edition of Walcott's poetry, edited by the sociologist and critic Lulú Giménez Saldivia and the poet Gabriel Araujo, El mar es historia (Caracas: Museo Jacobo Borges, 1996). The volume had a limited print run and was never sold in bookstores but it has been used at various Venezuelan universities. It includes translations of poems ranging from In a Green Night (1962) to Omeros (1990), along with introductory texts by Giménez Saldivia and Araujo.

Relatedly, I have a copy of the magazine Poesía (issue 118, February 1998), edited by Reynaldo Pérez Só at the Universidad de Carabobo in Valencia, which includes seven Spanish versions of poems by Walcott translated by the Puerto Rican poet Arnaldo Sepúlveda.

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