The Insistence of Harm - Paperback

by Fernando Valverde (Author), Allen Josephs (Translator), Laura Juliet Wood (Translator)

Born in Granada, Spain, in 1980, Fernando Valverde is widely considered one of the top young poets writing in Spanish today. Valverde is a leading figure in a movement of contemporary poets known as the Poetry of Uncertainty, and he has received some of the most significant awards for poetry in Spanish. This bilingual edition of his book The Insistence of Harm introduces English-language readers to some of his latest, most exciting work.

The Insistence of Harm is a series of poignant lyric poems that takes readers from India to the Balkans to Spain and to Latin America, exploring the nature of "harm" in its various guises--war, disease, heartbreak, suicide. The poems grapple with both the reality of loss and the distance that language imposes on it. The English translations by Allen Josephs and Laura Juliet Wood effectively capture both tone and content while attending to subtle nuances of the original Spanish, bringing a new and important voice to students of Spanish and poetry readers alike.

Author Biography

Fernando Valverde is visiting distinguished professor in the Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese at the University of Virginia. He is the author of several books of poetry, including Eyes of the Pelican. Allen Josephs, University Research Professor in the Department of English at the University of West Florida, is the author of a dozen books, all related to Spain and Latin America. Laura Juliet Wood, poet and translator based in Pensacola, Florida, and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, is the author of All Hands Lost.