New translations of poems by prominent Peruvian poet Carlos Germán Belli.
 
This selection of poems by internationally renowned Peruvian poet Carlos Germán Belli tempers a dark, ironic vision of worldly injustice with the “red midnight sun” of hope. Belli’s contemplative verses express faith in language, in bodily joy, and in artistic form. These thirty-five poems explore public and domestic spaces of confinement and freedom, from paralysis to the ease of a bird in its “azure cloister.” 
 
Translations by Karl Maurer retain Belli’s original meter, follow his complex syntax, and meet the challenges of his poetic language, which ranges from colloquial Peruvian slang to the ironic use of seventeenth-century Spanish. This bilingual edition also includes notes and reflections on Belli and on the art of translation. Beyond introducing American readers to a major presence in world poetry, The Azure Cloister offers a fresh approach to the translation of contemporary verse in Spanish.
 

"Belli’s work seeks the limits of human experience in forms that summon 'the bodies in which we dwell,' sometimes with what Maurer calls the 'tortuous Gongoresque syntax' of the Spanish Baroque, and in evocations of the timeless, abject, and ineffable." - Harriet (Poetry Foundation)

"“Belli has proven time and again that poetry can be both a renewal and enrichment of the language and a protest against inequalities.”" - Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas