{"title":"Swan Isle Press","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780997228793","title":"The Azure Cloister – Thirty–Five Poems","description":"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.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56295646691701,"sku":"9780997228793","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780997228793_96a06f45-6481-423c-b179-e288ad259209.jpg?v=1786016196"},{"product_id":"9781736189375","title":"Finding Duende","description":"A new translation of Federico García Lorca’s captivating lecture on duende.    For years, Federico García Lorca’s lecture on duende has been a source of insight for writers and performers, including Ted Hughes, Nick Cave, Patti Smith, and Amanda Gorman.   Duende: Play and Theory not only provides a path into Lorca’s poetics and the arts of Spain; it is one of the strangest, most compelling accounts of inspiration ever offered by a poet. Contrasting the demon called duende with the Angel and the Muse, Lorca describes a mysterious telluric, diabolical current, an irreducible “it,” that can draw the best from both performer and audience.    This new translation by Christopher Maurer, based on a thoroughly revised edition of the Spanish original of 1933, also included in this volume, offers a more accurate and fully annotated version of the lecture, with an introduction by eminent philologist José Javier León. Drawing on a deep knowledge of flamenco, and correcting decades of discussion about duende and its supposed origins in Spanish folklore and popular speech, León shows to what extent the concept of duende—understood as the imp of artistic inspiration—was the playful, yet deadly serious, invention of Lorca himself.    Lorca’s bravura performance of duende is foreshadowed here with a bilingual version—the most complete ever—of his other major text on inspiration, “Imagination, Inspiration, Evasion,” in which he calls for greater freedom in poetry as if searching for duende and its “constant baptism of newly created things.”","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56304019439989,"sku":"9781736189375","price":23.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781736189375_230a4f38-973f-4049-a4bd-30ae5015e81d.jpg?v=1786024860"},{"product_id":"9781961056039","title":"Aram's Notebook","description":"A mother and son’s fictional journey to escape the Armenian Genocide and start anew.  Like any other fifteen-year-old boy, Aram might never have written the events of his still young life, except that he found himself suddenly plunged into exile, fleeing certain death. In 1915, the Ottoman authorities undertook the wholesale extermination of the Armenian people; hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children like Aram suffered one of the twentieth century’s most savage persecutions. Inspired by the plight of the murdered modernist poet Daniel Varoujan (1884–1915), this novel follows Aram and his widowed mother on their flight toward a new life on—and under—the sea. From recollections of his father’s meditations on Homer to a life-changing apprenticeship as a coral fisherman off the coasts of Cataluña and Marseille, Aram’s tale dives into a future that might help redeem a harrowing past. Aram's Notebook examines the Armenian Genocide through a narrative in which poets and poetry loom large. Aram’s tale evokes a struggle not simply for physical survival, but for saving memory from the clutches of destruction. Evocatively translated from the original Catalan by Ara Merjian.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56309237580149,"sku":"9781961056039","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781961056039_394d01ea-7312-4450-8588-f8ab23793667.jpg?v=1786030364"},{"product_id":"9781961056091","title":"The Men Who Killed My Mother Los hombres que m – Poetry, Poesía","description":"A powerful account of the symbolic murder of the poet’s mother.    From the first poem in this bilingual edition of The Men Who Killed My Mother, it is evident that the mother in “Our Mother” (“Nuestra Madre”) is not only Fernando Valverde’s. The soulful refrain of “mother\/madre” might be anyone’s mother whose suffering is palpable in a world legislated over by men. Issues such as orphanhood, abuse, violence, manipulation, and fear are treated with the rawness of someone who has tasted the venom of betrayal. This is a lyrical dark garden of faith and family, exposing treachery and cruelty, and anger at injustice, from the voice of a son with deep love for his mother—for her honor, dignity, and dreams.  Valverde leads us into a forest full of wolves and serpents under the governance of civil society. He has received many awards for his poetry and is recognized as one of the most highly acclaimed poets of his generation in Spain. This heartfelt English translation by Gordon E. McNeer captures the power of Valverde’s poetic cadences and its haunting evocative lyricism.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56309657862517,"sku":"9781961056091","price":18.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781961056091_8c8c80b0-7c2b-4296-9275-2623b48c86a6.jpg?v=1786030366"},{"product_id":"how-a-city-sings-from-november-to-november","title":"How a City Sings from November to November","description":"Illuminates the place of music in the life and poetry of Federico García Lorca.   “Yo ante todo, soy músico,” Federico García Lorca once remarked: “Before all else, I am a musician.” Whether seated at the piano, collecting folksongs on his travels through Spain, or composing music for his plays, few poets have lived music so deeply. For Lorca, songs were “living creatures.” How a City Sings from November to November: Lorca on Music brings together for the first time in English the poet’s writing on music and musicians. In these pages, through lectures, letters, and interviews, Lorca celebrates the musical seasons of Granada, “a city enclosed by mountains and made for music”; the sources of cante jondo (flamenco deep song); the haunting melodies of Spanish cradle songs; and the dance of La Argentina. He describes learning the guitar, staging Spanish ballads in Buenos Aires, and listening to spirituals in New York. In bed with a fever, he compares it to a “delicate tempo rubato of Chopin.” Based on recent archival research, edited and newly translated by noted Lorca scholar Christopher Maurer, this collection offers an intricate and enjoyable counterpoint to Lorca’s poetry and theater.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57509989286261,"sku":"9781961056121","price":24.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781961056121.jpg?v=1791212939"},{"product_id":"helle","title":"Helle","description":"The first major English translation of Marcelle Tinayre’s Belle Époque novel that interrogates the struggle of coming of age as a young woman in a changing modern world.   Raised in the countryside by her reclusive classicist uncle, Hellé’s ideals are put to the test when she encounters the decadence and frivolity of Parisian society. Yet there she also meets the young political theorist and resolute socialist Antoine Genesvrier, who urges Hellé and her uncle to join him in supporting the city’s poor and advocating for social justice. Meanwhile, Hellé’s head is turned by the poet Maurice Clairmont, hailed by Parisian society as “the new Byron” and eager to win over Hellé with his beauty and charm. Caught between her love of beauty and her burgeoning social concern, Hellé must choose between two men, two ideals, and two worlds, while also staying true to herself. Tinayre infuses Hellé’s voice with the classical allusions of her uncle’s education and her love for the natural world, creating a fresh, engaging narrative that awakens both the mind and heart.   In this first major English translation, Grace Ashton brings exquisite resonance of tone, register, and spirit to Marcelle Tinayre’s perennially relevant novel.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57524731347317,"sku":"9781961056176","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"beautiful-lightning-that-lasts-moreno-villa-jacinta","title":"Beautiful Lightning that Lasts | Moreno Villa \u0026 Jacinta","description":"Uncovers the life and influence of Florence Ruth Louchheim, the inspiration behind Spanish poet and painter José Moreno Villa's Jacinta la pelirroja.   In 1926, Spanish poet and painter José Moreno Villa met a recent Radcliffe graduate at the Residencia de Estudiantes who changed his life forever and inspired the verses of his most famous book of poems, Jacinta la pelirroja (1929). He never revealed the true identity of his muse, and for many years, all that was known about her was that she had come to Madrid to attend the summer courses for foreigners held at the Residencia, where Moreno Villa lived between 1917 and 1936, serving as an informal tutor to students like García Lorca, Luis Buñuel, and Salvador Dalí. A passionate romance soon blossomed, leading the couple to make plans for marriage. However, after a trip to New York for her father—a Wall Street millionaire—to meet her future husband, the couple's breakup was sealed. In this book, Christopher Maurer, an authority on Spanish poetry, recounts the life and fortune of the mysterious Jacinta, whose real name was Florence Ruth Louchheim, an ardent defender of modern art who, in later life, would confront her social class and put her money at the service of painting. The Spanish artist's tumultuous relationship with Florence, his visit to New York, and his clash with American pragmatism marked a turning point in his life—a sort of \"beautiful lightning\" reflected in his later pictorial and literary works, created both in Madrid and, after his exile due to the civil war, in Mexico, where by chance he met Florence again. In Beautiful Lighting that Lasts, the love story is intertwined with the teaching of art in Harvard's fabled Museum Course, the unsettling encounter of a Spaniard with the religious and racial differences of American modernity, and Florence's life as a collector in the vibrant New York art scene of the 1940s and 50s. Profusely illustrated with paintings, sketches, and photographs, this co-publication with Madrid's Residencia de Estudiantes also offers selected poems excerpted from Jacinta la pelirroja by José Moreno Villa translated by Lauren Szenderski.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57536580190581,"sku":"9781961056190","price":29.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"deep-well-of-stars","title":"Deep Well of Stars","description":"The first English-language collection of poems by acclaimed poet Antonio Colinas, accompanied by the Spanish originals and a foreword by Colinas himself.   This bilingual anthology of poems by award-winning Spanish poet Antonio Colinas presents a selection from his seventeen poetic works from 1967 through 2025. His various texts explore the intertwined threads that unite human creation, nature, history, emotion, myth, and beauty in harmony. His poems offer detailed poetic visions ranging from the golden walls of Astorga to the dark waters of Venice, the ancient tiles of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing to an archaeological dig in Ibiza. He creates poetic tapestries based on many of his life experiences in different locations all over the world, both examining and illustrating the flow that connects all beings and objects. This geo-poetic trajectory starts in Colinas’s homeland of northwestern Spain and expands outwards to other provinces, countries, continents, and the cosmos. The poem translations by Maria C. Fellie focus on Colinas’s imagery, endeavoring to capture the sights, sounds, and sensory experiences that he portrays and render them in English. Colinas generally employs unrhymed verses of varying lengths, composed in a heightened contemporary yet classical style. This edition includes a foreword from the poet, brief introduction, translator’s note, chronological selection of poems in English and Spanish from each of his seventeen books, one unpublished poem in translation, and bibliography.   Antonio Colinas’s poetic debut in English offers almost six decades of words, literary images, and experiences to an expanded global audience, exemplifying unity and harmony in our conflicted world.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57680090464629,"sku":"9781961056206","price":23.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/publisher-swan-isle-press.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}