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Mundar
Juan Gelman nació en Buenos Aires en 1930. En su importantísima y dilatada obra poética, destacan los libros Violín y otras cuestiones (1956), Gotán (1962), Cólera buey (1964), los poemas de Sydney West (1969), relaciones (1973), Si dulcemente (1980), dibaxu (1994), Valer la pena (2002), País que fue será (2004) y Mundar (2007). Ha recibido el Premio Nacional de Poesía de Argentina (1997), el Premio Juan Rulfo (2000), el Premio Reina Sofía (2005) y el Premio Cervantes (2007).
- GenresPoetry
138 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
2 people are currently reading
18 people want to read
About the author
Juan Gelman
141 books92 followersJuan Gelman is one of the most read and influential poets in the Spanish language. He has published more than twenty books of poetry since 1956 and has been translated into fourteen languages. A political activist and critical journalist since his youth, Gelman has not only been a literary paradigm but also a moral one, within and outside of Argentina. Among his most recent awards are the National Poetry Prize (Argentina, 1997), the Juan Rulfo Prize in Latin American and Caribbean Literature (Mexico, 2000), the Pablo Neruda Prize (Chile, 2005), the Queen Sofia Prize in Ibero-American Poetry (Spain, 2005), and the Cervantes Prize (the most important award given to a Hispanic writer, Spain, 2007).
Long biographical note
Juan Gelman is the most significant, contemporary Argentine intellectual figure and one of the most read and influential poets in the Spanish language. Son of a family of Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine, he grew up like any other porteño, among soccer and tango, in the populous neighborhood of Villa Crespo. At 11, he published his first poem in the magazine Rojo y negro, and in the 1950s formed part of the group of rebel writers, El Pan Duro. He was discovered by Raúl González Túñón, among the most relevant voices of the southern country’s poetic avant-garde, who saw in the young man’s verses “a rich and vivacious lyricism and a principally social content […] that does not elude the richness of fantasy.”
Gelman has published, from his initial Violín y otras cuestiones (1956) to his most recent Mundar (2008), more than twenty books of poetry. These works, as Mario Benedetti asserted early on, constitute “the most coherent, and also the most daring, participatory repertoire (in spite of its inevitable wells of solitude), and ultimately the one most suited to its environment, that Argentine poetry has today”, and Hispanic poetry in general, as the profusion of re-editions of his books and numerous anthologies proves. Gelman’s poetry has achieved international recognition, with translations into fourteen languages, including English. Among his awards are the National Poetry Prize (Argentina, 1997), the Juan Rulfo Prize in Latin American and Caribbean Literature (Mexico, 2000), the Pablo Neruda Prize (Chile, 2005), the Queen Sofia Prize in Ibero-American Poetry (Spain, 2005), and the Cervantes Prize (Spain, 2007), the most important award in Hispanic Letters. No one should be surprised to see him the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature one day.
It would be relevant to note that Juan Gelman has not only been a literary paradigm but also a moral one, within and outside of Argentina. A political activist and critical journalist since his youth, he was forced into an exile of thirteen years because of the military dictatorship that ravaged his country from 1976 to 1983, and the weak governments that followed. In 1976 the ultra-right kidnapped his children, Nora Eva, 19, and Marcelo Ariel, 20, along with his son’s wife, María Claudia Iruretagoyena, 19, who was 7 months pregnant. Nora Eva would later return, unlike his son and daughter-in-law, who were killed; their child born in a concentration camp. The vehement search for the truth about the fate of these family members, which culminated in finding his granddaughter in Uruguay in 2000, has made the poet a symbol of the struggle for respect for human rights.
Like other poets from his time and space, Juan Gelman creates his work starting from a critique of the so-called post-avante-garde poetry, which surges in the Hispanic world in the 1940s and breaks with the powerful avante-garde. He is a poet who denies the labors of the Mexican Octavio Paz, the Cuban José Lezama Lima, the Argentine Alberto Girri, among others, to reaffirm it in his own way. It is a poetry that goes against the current, transgresses the established social and cultural order, challenges the individualism intrinsic to modernity and the neo-colonial condition. A poetry that renounc
Long biographical note
Juan Gelman is the most significant, contemporary Argentine intellectual figure and one of the most read and influential poets in the Spanish language. Son of a family of Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine, he grew up like any other porteño, among soccer and tango, in the populous neighborhood of Villa Crespo. At 11, he published his first poem in the magazine Rojo y negro, and in the 1950s formed part of the group of rebel writers, El Pan Duro. He was discovered by Raúl González Túñón, among the most relevant voices of the southern country’s poetic avant-garde, who saw in the young man’s verses “a rich and vivacious lyricism and a principally social content […] that does not elude the richness of fantasy.”
Gelman has published, from his initial Violín y otras cuestiones (1956) to his most recent Mundar (2008), more than twenty books of poetry. These works, as Mario Benedetti asserted early on, constitute “the most coherent, and also the most daring, participatory repertoire (in spite of its inevitable wells of solitude), and ultimately the one most suited to its environment, that Argentine poetry has today”, and Hispanic poetry in general, as the profusion of re-editions of his books and numerous anthologies proves. Gelman’s poetry has achieved international recognition, with translations into fourteen languages, including English. Among his awards are the National Poetry Prize (Argentina, 1997), the Juan Rulfo Prize in Latin American and Caribbean Literature (Mexico, 2000), the Pablo Neruda Prize (Chile, 2005), the Queen Sofia Prize in Ibero-American Poetry (Spain, 2005), and the Cervantes Prize (Spain, 2007), the most important award in Hispanic Letters. No one should be surprised to see him the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature one day.
It would be relevant to note that Juan Gelman has not only been a literary paradigm but also a moral one, within and outside of Argentina. A political activist and critical journalist since his youth, he was forced into an exile of thirteen years because of the military dictatorship that ravaged his country from 1976 to 1983, and the weak governments that followed. In 1976 the ultra-right kidnapped his children, Nora Eva, 19, and Marcelo Ariel, 20, along with his son’s wife, María Claudia Iruretagoyena, 19, who was 7 months pregnant. Nora Eva would later return, unlike his son and daughter-in-law, who were killed; their child born in a concentration camp. The vehement search for the truth about the fate of these family members, which culminated in finding his granddaughter in Uruguay in 2000, has made the poet a symbol of the struggle for respect for human rights.
Like other poets from his time and space, Juan Gelman creates his work starting from a critique of the so-called post-avante-garde poetry, which surges in the Hispanic world in the 1940s and breaks with the powerful avante-garde. He is a poet who denies the labors of the Mexican Octavio Paz, the Cuban José Lezama Lima, the Argentine Alberto Girri, among others, to reaffirm it in his own way. It is a poetry that goes against the current, transgresses the established social and cultural order, challenges the individualism intrinsic to modernity and the neo-colonial condition. A poetry that renounc
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 10, 2015
“¿Qué castigabas cuando me
castigabas?
No te pregunto, me pregunto.
Ya sé que es tarde para todo, menos
este saber de vos que no se sabe.”
Tiene uno que otro verso sublime, pero aún así no suficiente como para compararlo con Girondo, Borges, Porchia, ni Bayley (para mí, los mejores poetas argentinos). Aunque tal vez no sea justo crearme una opinión basada únicamente en este libro, los poetas -se ha demostrado científicamente, hah!- suelen desmejorar con el tiempo, y este tiene toda la desventaja de ser una de sus ultimas antologías. Así que: Los poemas de Sidney West, voy por ti.
November 11, 2019
Poeta de la brevedad, en este libro Juan Gelman refrenda un lenguaje poético de imágenes audaces, concisión y sintaxis atrevidas en los que cada poema está compuesto de una sola estrofa, y que reposa fuertemente en neologismos, onomatopeyas y recursos lingüísticos propios del habla popular.
Probablemente este libro, cuyo título hace referencia a la experiencia del mundo o “mundar”, sea uno de los ejemplos más vívidos de la poesía de nuestro tiempo. Imperdible.
Probablemente este libro, cuyo título hace referencia a la experiencia del mundo o “mundar”, sea uno de los ejemplos más vívidos de la poesía de nuestro tiempo. Imperdible.
October 19, 2022
En la farándula del viento
colgué las ropas de mi amor. Qué vuelo
tuvo entonces el tiempo que
nos pasamos el uno al otro / tan
difícil de agarrar completo.
Estamos en
lo que nos faltamos. Allí
nos vemos el uno al otro
en una calle donde
la luz cae al revés.
colgué las ropas de mi amor. Qué vuelo
tuvo entonces el tiempo que
nos pasamos el uno al otro / tan
difícil de agarrar completo.
Estamos en
lo que nos faltamos. Allí
nos vemos el uno al otro
en una calle donde
la luz cae al revés.
October 9, 2024
Lo compré tras haber leído y disfrutado mucho “Violín y otras cuestiones”, pero no tuvo el mismo impacto. Destaco algunos poemas que me gustaron mucho, pero otros no me llegaron. De todas formas es siempre un placer leer la prosa de Juan Gelman.
August 14, 2020
Solo he conectado con algunos poemas
September 3, 2017
No es un libro que considere genial. Pero los poemas de la ultima parte del libro compensan la lectura de todo su contenido. Y uno que otro poema en el medio, con algunos versos legendarios y dignos de subrayar.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews