In calling this collection Yoruba from Cuba, a phrase from the poem
'Son Número 6', the translator, Salvador Ortiz-Carboneres, draws
attention to Guillén's pioneering embrace, more than sixty years ago, of
an African identity in Cuba.
His selection shows Guillén constantly returning to the theme of race
and the historical legacies of slavery in both the Caribbean and the
USA. But in poems such as 'Balada de los Dos Abuelos', Guillén is also
seen stressing the mulatez heterogeneity of Cuban culture in drawing on
African, European and other immigrant traditions.
As a life-long Marxist and anti-imperialist, Guillén celebrated the
Cuban revolution, including the heroic example of Che Guevara, but he
also addressed the tendency to a repressive puritanism within the ruling
party in such important poems as 'Digo que yo no soy un hombre puro'.
In this dual language selection of one of the outstanding poets of the
Hispanic world, Salvador Ortiz-Carboneres has created lively, very
readable English versions that capture both the colloquial vigour of
Guillén's language and the incantatory rhythms of those of the poems
where he draws on the dance patterns of the Cuban 'son'.
The selection covers the range of Guillén's work from Poemas de
Transición (1927-1931) up to poems from La Rueda Dentada and El
Diario que a Diario, both of 1972.
With a translator's preface, an introduction by the distinguished
scholar of Cuban culture, Professor Alistair Hennessy, notes, a
chronology and a reading list, this is an edition that will bring
Guillén's powerful and epochal poetry to both the general reader and to
the student. His work is unquestionably one of the towering landmarks of
Caribbean poetry.
Salvador Ortiz-Carboneres teaches Spanish language and Latin
American poetry at the Language Centre, University of Warwick.
