Los tambores del tiempo

by Wilfred Owen, Carles Llorach-Freixes (Introduction), Isabel Lacruz Bassols (Translator)

Wilfred Owen (Oswestry, Inglaterra, 1893 – Ors, Francia 1918) se interesó por la poesía siendo adolescente. Sin embargo, sus tentativas en este campo no hubieran aportado nada nuevo a la literatura de no haber sido por sus experiencias vitales en las trincheras de la Primera Guerra Mundial. Allí conoció el sufrimiento propio y el ajeno; no obstante, este dolor no lo llevó a escribir poemas de exaltación patriótica y guerrera, sino a expresar con voz lírica estos padecimientos y la compasión que la contienda despertó en él. Con humildad y sin rencor, nos cuenta cómo se sentían muchos soldados en la primera línea de una guerra que para muchos de ellos ya había perdido todo sentido. Wilfred Owen (cuya obra fue utilizada por Benjamin Britten en el célebre War Requiem, 1962) murió en Francia en el campo de batalla y sus poemas ―vertidos aquí por Isabel Lacruz y Carles Llorach-Freixes― hacen de él el gran poeta del sufrimiento y del horror que supuso la Gran Guerra.

288 pages, Paperback

Published March 9, 2016

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the goodreads data base.

Wilfred Owen was a defining voice of British poetry during the First World War, renowned for his stark portrayals of trench warfare and gas attacks. Deeply influenced by Siegfried Sassoon, whom he met while recovering from shell shock, Owen’s work departed from the patriotic war verse of the time, instead conveying the brutal reality of combat and the suffering of soldiers. Among his best-known poems are Dulce et Decorum est, Anthem for Doomed Youth, and Strange Meeting—many of which were published only after his death.
Born in 1893 in Shropshire, Owen developed an early passion for poetry and religion, both of which would shape his artistic and moral worldview. He worked as a teacher and spent time in France before enlisting in the British Army in 1915. After a traumatic experience at the front, he was treated for shell shock at Craiglockhart War Hospital, where Sassoon’s mentorship helped refine his poetic voice.
Owen returned to active service in 1918, determined to bear witness to the horrors of war. He was killed in action just one week before the Armistice. Though only a few of his poems were published during his lifetime, his posthumous collections cemented his legacy as one of the greatest war poets in English literature. His work continues to be studied for its powerful combination of romantic lyricism and brutal realism, as well as its complex engagement with themes of faith, duty, and identity.