Böcker av Ernesto Cardenal

Pluriverse: New and Selected Poems charts the life-work of the celebrated poet Ernesto Cardenal-"one of the world's major poets" (Choice) and "the preeminent poet of Central America today" (Library Journal). Follow Cardenal's poetic development across six decades, from the early exteriorismo poems and romantic epigrams of the early 1950s, to the increasingly spiritual and political verse he wrote as priest and activist (including his classic revolutionary documentary poem "Zero Hour") to the shorter victory and ecology poems, and elegies to fallen Sandinistas, and on to the cosmic-mystical-scientific dimensions of his later work. "Here they are-" editor Jonathan Cohen writes in his Introduction, "to gladden your heart and enrich your soul."

In Solentiname, a remote archipelago in Lake Nicaragua, the people gathered each Sunday to reflect together on the Gospel reading. From recordings of their dialogue, this extraordinary document of faith in the midst of struggle was composed. First published in four volumes, The Gospel in Solentiname was immediately acclaimed as a classic of liberation theology--a radical reading of the good news of Jesus from the perspective of the poor and the oppressed. (It was also banned by the Somoza dictatorship.)Forty years later The Gospel in Solentiname retains its freshness and power. Though times may have changed, the message of Jesus--as heard by these peasants--continues to challenge the rulers of our age and to inspire the poor with the hope of a different world.

Apocalypse and Other Poems by Nicaragua's revolutionist poet-priest, Ernesto Cardenal, is the author's second book, the first of poetry, to be published by New Directions. The editors of this volume, Robert Pring-Mill and Donald D. Walsh, have chosen a representative selection of Cardenal's shorter protest poems, epigrams, religious, and Amerindian verse. Also included are two of Cardenal's most impressive longer works: the haunting and melodic elegy, "Coplas on the Death of Merton," and the title poem, "Apocalypse," in which the theme of an ever-threatening nuclear holocaust is the core of a modern rendering of the Book of Revelations. At Our Lady of Solentiname, his religious community on an island in Lake Nicaragua, living and working in the manner of the early Christians, Father Cardenal embodies what he professes: "Now in Latin America, to practice religion is to make revolution." An informative introduction has been contributed by Robert Pring-Mill of Oxford University. The translations are by Thomas Merton, Robert Pring-Mill, Kenneth Rexroth and Mireya Jaimes-Freyre, and Donald D. Walsh, who also translated In Cuba, Cardenal's assessment of Fidel Castro's revolutionary society, published by New Directions in 1974.