Katabasis by Lucia Estrada and translated by Olivia Lott

This is poetry from Colombia.

Katabasis by Lucia Estrada translated by Olivia Lott is published by Eulalia Books. This is a Book originally written in Spanish. This was published in 2020.0 and has the ISBN of 9.781732936355E12.

Lucía Estrada’s Katabasis, translated by Olivia Lott, takes its title from the ancient descent into the underworld. That mythic frame gives the book a deep architecture: descent, darkness, encounter, transformation, and the difficult return. Estrada’s poetry often feels dreamlike and philosophical, moving through body, landscape, death, and the thresholds where ordinary perception begins to fail. Lott’s translation carries the poem’s underworld logic into English with care, allowing the descent to remain strange rather than turning it into simple allegory. I would recommend Katabasis to readers who like poetry that moves downward in order to think more clearly. The book understands that the underworld is not only a place for the dead. It is also where language goes when the surface has become insufficient. Estrada’s descent is lyric, mythic, and quietly fierce.

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.