Nostalgia for Death & Hieroglyphs of Desire

by Xavier Villaurrutia, Eliot Weinberger (Translator)

Overview

Nostalgia for Death is the sole book of Villaurrutia, who was one of the few openly homosexual Latin American writers and one of Mexico's most important authors of the early twentieth century. "The latest of Eliot Weinberger's brilliant translations of Latin American poets brings to English the major volume of an impeccable Mexican modernist."--Booklist

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781556590535
Publisher:	Copper Canyon Press
Publication date:	07/01/1992
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

Editorial Reviews

``Death always takes the shape / of our bedroom,'' the openly homosexual Mexican writer Villaurrutia, who died in 1950, begins one of his more impressive poems. But the equation of sex and death is nothing new. The poems in this bilingual volume move from night, to death, to the final joyous realization that ``it may just be possible / to live after having died.'' Unimpressed by the poems, the reader may turn to Nobel laureate Paz's 1977 essay to better understand their importance. But the essay is ``intended as a critical description of Mexican culture at a given moment,'' and Paz focuses primarily on the cultural milieu and on Villaurrutia's criticism, theatre pieces and fiction. When actually discussing the poetry, Paz is lukewarm at best. His praise is often for the verbal puns and the formal structure (all lost in Weinberger's nevertheless readable translation). ``For the majority of readers, Villaurrutia is the author of some fifteen or twenty poems . . . that count among the best poems in our language and of his time . . . '' But it is still a ``solitary'' poetry in which even the eroticism lauded as the translators' impetus is kept hidden from a potential audience. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Although Mexican author Villaurrutia (1903-50) wrote relatively little poetry (not all of which is here), his complete works include accomplished drama and criticism. From his homosexuality, he gleaned the subtle insights of his master poem, ``L.A. Nocturne,'' where angels named Dick or John or Marvin ``come down to earth/ on visible ladders'' and ``fall into beds, sink into pillows/ that make them think they're still in the clouds.'' But it is the timeless metaphor of night as death that fascinates this poet, and the death that he craves is perceived as a distant and forgotten country, ``secretly deformed/ by exile in this land.'' These poems, free of local color and ideological harangue, are accompanied by Paz's scholarly essay, written in 1977, which tantalizes as much as it enlightens because it discusses works unavailable in English. Perhaps this book will arouse interest in an author underappreciated in both our hemispheres. For academic collections.-- Jack Shreve, Allegany Community Coll., Cumberland, Md.

Library Journal

The sole volume by Villaurrutia (1904-1950), an important Mexican poet who was also openly homosexual and whose poetry has been compared to Cavafy's), is translated by Eliot Weinberger, in a pairing with Octavio Paz's study, Villaurrutia: Hieroglyphs of Desire, translated by Esther Allen. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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