Celeste, Daughter of the Earth and Other Early Poems

Enrique Lihn (trans. Jonathan Cohen & David Unger)

Enrique Lihn is among the most important Chilean poets, alongside Nicanor Parra, since the generation of Gabriela Mistral, Vicente Huidobro, and Pablo Neruda. Lihn’s first two poetry books represented here—Nada se escurre (Nothing Slips Away), 1949, and Poemas de este tiempo y de otro, (Poems of This Time and Another), 1955—introduce his dark, lyric genius and existential intensity. These works sounded the clarion call announcing that a new voice had been born within the rich and unrestrained tradition of Chilean poetry. This current volume contains a marvelous selection of Lihn’s pioneering early work, translated exquisitely by Jonathan Cohen and David Unger, and introduced by the Chilean writer and Lihn scholar Roberto Brodsky.