Description
Poetry. Latino/Latina Studies. Translated from the Spanish by Kristin Dykstra and Roberto Tejada, featuring an essay by Kristin Dykstra. "Omar Perez Lopez (1964-) was born in the city of Havana and has lived most of his life to date in Cuba. A former journalist, Perez has explored a wide array of literary genres, particularly poetry, translation, and the essay...At the center of SOMETHING OF THE SACRED is the exploration of displacement. Perez sees poetic metaphor as 'the subtle displacement of something objective'...His apparent strangeness, particularly in his varied uses of Zen traditions, has prevented critics from grouping Perez very comfortably into movements with other writers in contemporary Cuba..Perez has been connected most frequently with Havana's 'Generation of the '80s.' Raised under the auspices of the post-1959 Cuban government, this generation of writers had never experienced the island's earlier governmental or social system. Seen as the product of the Cuban social experiment accompanying the new government, they were raised to envision themselves as participants in a revolution of global resonance. By the 1980s, however, the most utopian elements of this vision had been complicated with a series of experiences suggesting the need for further critical thinking and reform"--Kristin Dykstra.
Author Bio
Omar Pérez's books include CUBANOLOGY (2018), Lingua Franca (2010); Oíste hablar del gato de pelea? (1999, translated as DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE FIGHTING CAT? by Kristin Dykstra, 2010); and ALGO DE LO SAGRADO (1996, translated as SOMETHING OF THE SACRED by Kristin Dykstra and Robert Tejada, 2007). His translations include Italian-Cuban novelist Alba de Céspedes's Nadie vuelve atrás (2003); and Shakespeare's As You Like It (as Como Les Guste, 2000). He received Cuba's Nicolás Guillén Prize for Poetry for Crítica de la Razón Puta (2009) as well as its National Critics' Prize for his essay collection La perseverancia de un hombre oscuro (2000). His work has also been featured in the anthology The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry, A Bilingual Anthology (2009). Pérez was born and raised in Havana. He earned a degree in English at the University of Havana and studied Italian at the Universitá per Straniere di Siena. He has worked as a journalist for El Caimán Barbudo, and as an editor for the magazine La naranja dulce. A former member of the Cuban intellectual group Paideia, he edited the poetry magazine Mantis in the '90s. Ordained as a Zen Buddhist monk, Pérez composes poems that engage languages, Zen, and political and cultural transcendence.
Author City: Havana CUB