It’s always exciting when an important literary figure has his work properly presented (they said, shortly before suffering through a wedgie), and now the despairing, politically charged poetry of César Vallejo, who died in 1938, has finally gotten the treatment it deserves. This authoritative, elegant, and sturdy edition presents the Peruvian modernist’s complete poems on opposing pages with their translations, which were rendered by Clayton Eshleman, himself a poet of enormous range and sensitivity. They’re destined to become classics.
The Complete Poetry
By César Vallejo, translated by Clayton Eshleman. University of California Press; $49.95