Description
Poetry. Latino/Latina Studies. Translated from the Spanish by Jeannine Pitas in a bilingual edition. Cover art by Basil King. This new translation of Marosa di Giorgio, one of Uruguay's most famous poets, includes four book-length poems from the middle of her career: The History of Violets (1965); Magnolia (1968); The War of the Orchards (1971); and The Native Garden is in Flames (1975). Occupying the same childhood landscapes that may be familiar to English-language readers from the previously published volume The History of Violets (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010), these serial prose poems explore memory, familial relationships, erotic desire, and war. Marosa di Giorgio uses the recurring setting of a garden as a stage for the ongoing encounter of nature and the supernatural.
Author Bio
Born in Salto, Uruguay, and raised on her family's farm, Marosa di Giorgio (1932-2004) is one of the most prominent Uruguayan poets of the twentieth century. Di Giorgio began writing in her childhood and published her first book of poems at the age of twenty-two. She then went on to publish a total of fourteen books of poetry, three collections of short stories, and one novel. While some critics have categorized her as a surrealist, she herself denied membership in any literary movement or school. Although she was relatively unknown outside the Southern Cone during her lifetime, she is now becoming more and more widely read throughout Latin America and Europe. Thanks to the efforts of various translators, she is also becoming more known in the English-speaking world.
Author City: Salto URU
Jeannine Marie Pitas has translated four other books by Marosa di Giorgio, which were published together by Ugly Duckling Presse in 2017, under the title I REMEMBER NIGHTFALL. She is the author of the poetry collection Things Seen and Unseen (Mosaic Press, 2019), and her most recent translations are of Uruguayan poet Selva Casal's WE DO NOT LIVE IN VAIN (Veliz Books, 2020) and Romina Freschi's Echo of the Park (Eulalia Books, 2019). She lives in Iowa and teaches English and Spanish at the University of Dubuque.
Author City: SALTO URU