Maqroll's Prayer and Other Poems -- Alvaro Mutis, Paperback

ﾁlvaro Mutis's fantastical, gripping, unnerving tales of the exploits and adventures of Maqroll, the Gaviero, or watchman, an inveterate wanderer both on land and sea, are among the most beloved works of twentieth-century Latin American fiction. Like the stories of Borges, like the novels of Mutis's great friend Garc僘 M疵quez, they conjure a strange world of their own which also holds up a mirror, disquieting and revelatory, to the everyday world we imagine we know.

If Maqroll eventually found his way into prose, he began his career in poetry, and it was as a poet that Mutis first made his name as a writer. This selection of Mutis's haunting verse, with its evocations, now lush, now stark, of the landscapes of South America, with its prayers to an unknown god, is the first to be published in English. Rendered by Chris Andrews, Edith Grossman, and Alastair Reid, masters of the art of translation, these resonant poems offer a dazzling new entry into the imagination of one of the most original and memorable writers of modern times.

Author: Alvaro Mutis
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Published: 03/12/2024
Pages: 208
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.40lbs
Size: 6.90h x 4.40w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9781590178744

About the Author
Colombia-born ﾁlvaro Mutis (1923-2013) was an author of poetry, short stories, and novels. He received many literary awards, including the 1989 Prix M馘icis and the 2002 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. NYRB Classics publishes his complete Maqroll series in The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll.

Chris Andrews is a translator of Spanish and French literature. He has translated nine books by Roberto Bola, including By Night in Chile and Distant Star, and ten books (and counting) by C駸ar Aira, including The Musical Brain and Ghosts, and titles by many other authors. He has won the Valle-Incl疣 Prize and the French-American Foundation Translation Prize for his translations. He lives in Australia.

Edith Grossman (1936-2023) was an award-winning translator of poetry and prose by contemporary Spanish-language writers, including Gabriel Garc僘 M疵quez and Mario Vargas Llosa. In 2006 she was awarded the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation.

Alastair Reid (1926-2014) was a poet, translator, and traveler. He published more than forty books, including two books for children, Ounce Dice Trice and Supposing. . . , both available from The New York Review Children's Collection.