Landscape With Yellow Birds

"The best Spanish poet of the second half of the twentieth century."--Juan Goytisolo "One of the most important poets of postwar literature."-- El País "Valente exemplified poetic integrity, pushing poetry into terrains that compete with religious, mystical and Heideggerian notions of inner being."-- The Guardian The summit of song The nightingale and you are finally the same. In the mirror your image has faded. I could no longer see you when I looked at myself. For the first time in English: a bilingual, comprehensive selection of poems from each of hthe published books by Spain's most important postwar poet, winner of the Premio Nacional de Literature. A "mystic poet in a modern mode," José Ángel Valente is renowned as a platonist of the word who strips language bare. Among a variety of forms, from experimental to prose, his poems conjure stunning, vibrant lyrics of absolute immediacy. José Ángel Valente(1929--2000) was a poet, essayist, and translator. He was the recipient of many literary awards, including the Premio Adonáis for poetry, the Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras, and the Premio Nacional de Literatura, awarded posthumously for his body of work in 2000. Tom Christensenhas translated the works of Carlos Fuentes, Alejo Carpentier, and Julio Cortázar, among others. His translation of Ballets Without Music, Without Dancers, Without Anythingby Louis-Ferdinand Céline was a finalist for the PEN America West Translation Award.

José Ángel Valente (1929–2000) produced more than twenty volumes of poetry and many important essays. He lived in Switzerland from 1958 to 1982, and some of his work was not allowed to be published in Franco’s Spain. Valente expressed that poetry is a "revelation of an aspect of reality to which there is no means of access other than through poetic knowledge." He was awarded the Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras in 1988, the Premio de la Fundación Pablo Iglesias in 1984, the Premio Reina Sofía de Poesía Iberoamericana in 1993, the Premio de la Crítica in 1960 and 1990, and the Premio Nacional de Literatura posthumously in 2000. Upon his death in 2000, The Independent called him "Spain’s greatest contemporary poet."

Thomas Christensen is the author of 1616: The World in Motion and New World/New Words: Recent Writing from the Americas. He has translated, often in collaboration with his wife, Carol Christensen, works by Carlos Fuentes, Julio Cortázar, Alejo Carpentier, and Louis-Ferdinand Céline, among others. He lives in Richmond, California.