The Insistence of Harm

by Fernando Valverde, Allen Josephs (Translator), Laura Juliet Wood (Translator)

Born in Granada, Spain, in 1980, Fernando Valverde is widely considered one of the top young poets writing in Spanish today. Valverde is a leading figure in a movement of contemporary poets known as the Poetry of Uncertainty, and he has received some of the most significant awards for poetry in Spanish. This bilingual edition of his book The Insistence of Harm introduces English-language readers to some of his latest, most exciting work.

The Insistence of Harm is a series of poignant lyric poems that takes readers from India to the Balkans to Spain and to Latin America, exploring the nature of “harm” in its various guises—war, disease, heartbreak, suicide. The poems grapple with both the reality of loss and the distance that language imposes on it. The English translations by Allen Josephs and Laura Juliet Wood effectively capture both tone and content while attending to subtle nuances of the original Spanish, bringing a new and important voice to students of Spanish and poetry readers alike.

Genres: Poetry

144 pages, Paperback

Published October 15, 2019

About the author

Fernando Valverde has been voted the most relevant Spanish-language poet born since 1970 by nearly two hundred critics and researchers from more than one hundred international universities (Harvard, Oxford, Columbia, Princeton, Bologna, Salamanca and the Sorbonne). His books have been published in different countries in Europe and America and translated into several languages. He has received some of the most significant awards for poetry in Spanish, among them the Federico García Lorca, the Emilio Alarcos del Principado de Asturias, and the Antonio Machado. His last book, The Insistence of Harm, has been the most-sold book of poetry in Spain and has received the Book of the Year award from the Latino American Writers Institute of the City University of New York. In 2014, he was nominated for a Latin Grammy for his collaboration in a work of fusion between poetry and flamenco. For ten years, he has worked as a journalist for the Spanish newspaper El País. He directs the International Festival of Poetry in Granada—one of the most important literary events in Europe—that has featured more than 300 authors, including several Nobel Prize laureates.

Reviews

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Valverde is a young poet from Granada, born in 1980, who is here at UVA as a Visiting Professor. I have had the privilege of hearing him read his poetry here. My favorite in this collection is "Celia," which I read, perhaps mistakenly, as an ode to his mother, who suffered a debilitating stroke, a declaration of love to someone who is "there" and no longer "here."

[Matthew Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lyrical. Beautiful. I love this line:

Today I know
that hope
Is
Fear blindfolded.

[Philip Coulter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Style very much reminded me of Carolyn Forché, who I note translated a different volume of his poetry.