Florentino and the devilFlorentino y el Diablo by Alberto Arvelo Torrealba and translated by Timothy Adès with Gloria Carnevali

This is poetry from Venezuela.

Florentino and the devilFlorentino y el Diablo by Alberto Arvelo Torrealba translated by Timothy Adès with Gloria Carnevali is published by Shearsman Books. This is a Book originally written in Spanish. This was published in 2014.0 and has the ISBN of 9.781848613485E12.

Alberto Arvelo Torrealba’s Florentino and the devilFlorentino y el Diablo, translated by Timothy Adès with Gloria Carnevali, belongs on the shelf as more than a data point from Venezuela. It carries Alberto Arvelo Torrealba’s Florentino and the devil, a Venezuelan classic of song, contest, and folk imagination brought into English. The best entries in a translated poetry library do not merely point to a country, language, or press; they give a reader a reason to linger with the strangeness of another voice. This is the kind of book I would describe through atmosphere first and certainty second. Let the work be partial, difficult, plainspoken, excessive, or mysterious on its own terms before turning it into a lesson.

If you’d like to see international poetry continue and gain traction, consider requesting this work from your local library, or purchasing it from places like Open Books (a poetry only bookstore), Asterism Books (an independent press distributor), or bookshop.org to connect you with your local bookstores.

Check out more of the always in-progress translated poetry index here.