The Book of Destructions by Margarita Vélez Verbel and translated by Maria Fernanda Del Castillo Sucerquia

This is poetry from Colombia.

The Book of Destructions by Margarita Vélez Verbel translated by Maria Fernanda Del Castillo Sucerquia is published by Unsolicited Press. This is a Book originally written in Spanish. This was published in 2026.0 and has the ISBN of 9.781963115895E12.

Margarita Vélez Verbel’s The Book of Destructions, translated by María Fernanda Del Castillo Sucerquia, arrives with a title that makes no attempt to soften its terrain. Destruction can mean war, ecological damage, intimate collapse, social violence, or the quieter dismantling of a self. In a Colombian context, that word carries particular historical weight, but the strongest poetry does not turn context into a cage. It lets the local and the existential speak through one another. The translation brings this contemporary work into English with the seriousness its title demands. I would read The Book of Destructions as a book interested in what remains after forms of damage have done their work. The question is not only what has been ruined. The question is what language can still gather from the ruins without pretending repair is simple.

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.