Maqroll's Prayer and Other Poems

by Álvaro Mutis, Alastair Reid (Translation), Edith Grossman (Translation)

Álvaro Mutis is celebrated internationally as the author of the seven novellas, written between 1986 and 1993, that constitute the legendary and widely loved Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll. Maqroll, the Gaviero, or watchman, is a wanderer on the face of the earth, always in pursuit of love and fortune, even as he knows that neither can nor will last. Few know, however, that Maqroll made his first appearance, and established his myth, not in prose but in poetry. Starting 1948, Mutis published several volumes of surrealist-tinged poetry, but with an unmistakable voice of his own, gaining the admiration of Octavio Paz and Gabriel García Márquez, who would later call him “one of the greatest writers of our time.” Here a selection of Mutis’s haunting poems—invocations to a hidden god, private talismans of an outcast spirit—has been rendered into English by two of the finest translators at work today, Alastair Reid and Edith Grossman, and published in a bilingual edition.

Genres: Poetry

195 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 4, 2015

About the author

Novelista y poeta colombiano. Uno de los grandes escritores hispanoamericanos contemporáneos. Autor destacado por la riqueza verbal de su producción y una característica combinación de lírica y narratividad. A lo largo de su carrera literaria ha recibido, entre otros, el Premio Xavier Villaurrutia en 1988, el Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras en 1997, el Premio Reina Sofía de Poesía Iberoamericana en 1997, el Premio Cervantes en 2001 y el Premio Internacional Neustadt de Literatura en 2002.

Reviews

[Jonfaith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Take note of the neglect that reigns here. Like the days of my life. That's all it was. It will never be otherwise.

I first encounter the work of Mutis about 20 years ago, I had left a work conference early to browse in bookshops. I was enchanted with the tales of forever reading captain, the slight subversion of the maritime adventure. The images and his atavistic philosophy remained with me. Now I am older, supposedly wiser and perpetually stressed. It was till with a certain trepidation that I awaited the arrival of these poems in the post. I read many quickly and others I savored in the brilliant sunshine which has graced us these last few days. Many feature the titular captain, some are prose pages recalling the best Spleen of Baudelaire. Others are experiments, lucid dreaming along the snaking rivers of Columbia. Others cosmopolitan and pristine. This is certainly a collection I will return to repeatedly.