Valdivia

Poetry. Latino/Latina Studies. Translated from the Spanish by Daniel Borzutzky. Winner of the 2017 National Translation Award in Poetry. What spirits lurk beneath the surface of Valdivia's Calle-Calle River or loiter under the arches of the Pedro de Valdivia Bridge in southern Chile? Galo Ghigliotto's VALDIVIA answers these questions and others by intertwining memories of disaster and tragedy--personal, political, and natural--to recreate and relive each anew in unforgettably vivid poetry. Set in a city rich with history and mythology, VALDIVIA reveals a Necropastoral Chile--by evoking the threatening natural environment that bore the devastation of the most powerful earthquake on record and the state-sponsored violence of recent Chilean political history. In his introduction to the translation, Ghigliotto, a student of the great Chilean poet Raúl Zurita, states, Over time, I discovered that there are things in this book that I did not know were there, but there they are. I am there, yes. VALDIVIA is, too, but Chile is there as well, and the emblem of Chile is violence. [.] It is a tragic country, where legends exist because there is always something dark and evil creating them somewhere. With Ghigliotto's VALDIVIA, Daniel Borzutzky continues the urgent and necessary work of translating contemporary Chilean poets as he deftly Englishes Ghiglotto's verses, full of the shadowy figures and images of legend that plague the city and the psychological memoryscapes that haunt the poet.

Daniel Borzutzky's most recent books include THE PERFORMANCE OF BECOMING HUMAN (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2016), which is a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award; Memories of my Overdevelopment (2015); IN THE MURMURS OF THE ROTTEN CARCASS ECONOMY (Nightboat Books, 2015); and THE BOOK OF INTERFERING BODIES (Nightboat Books, 2011). His translation of Raúl Zurita's THE COUNTRY OF PLANKS (2015) was nominated for the 2016 National Translation Award. He has translated Zurita's SONG FOR HIS DISAPPEARED LOVE (Action Books, 2010), and Jaime Luis Huenún's PORT TRAKL (Action Books, 2008). His work has been supported by the Illinois Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Pen/Heim Translation Fund. He lives in Chicago.