Aphorisms

by César Vallejo, Stephen Kessler (Translator)

As the translator writes in his introduction: "These are not aphorisms in the classical sense of philosophic gemstones cut and polished to epigrammatic perfection. They are more like thoughts-in-progress from the notebooks of a radical modernist poet trying to regain his bearings after a consciousness-shaking encounter with Soviet socialism. Vallejo, one of the most distinctive and challenging individual voices in a period of great creative ferment throughout Europe and especially poets writing in Spanish, appears to have experienced in 1928 an almost religious conversion to Marxism. From Paris, where he had been self-exiled from his native Peru since 1924, he traveled to both Russia and Spain toward the end of that decade, and the dynamic tension between his own subjective, visionary poetics and a desire for solidarity with the masses energizes and haunts these writings."
Born in 1892 in a small Andean town, César Vallejo published Los heraldos negros in 1919 and his masterpiece, Trilce, in 1922. He died in Paris in 1938.

86 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2001

About the author

César Abraham Vallejo Mendoza was a Peruvian poet. Although he published only three books of poetry during his lifetime, he is considered one of the great poetic innovators of the 20th century. Always a step ahead of the literary currents, each of his books was distinct from the others and, in it's own sense, revolutionary. Clayton Eshleman and José Rubia Barcia's translation of "The Complete Posthumous Poetry of César Vallejo" won the National Book Award for translation in 1979.

Reviews

[Justin Evans]

Giving this book stars would be completely meaningless. Vallejo's jottings would probably take up one to two pages of actual text; here they're spread out across about 80 small pages, with the Spanish in parallel. It's lovely, and reminds me yet again that anglophones are very bad at the jeu d'esprit, the aphorism, and the short text. I have no idea why. Anyway, three great thoughts from Cesar:

Love liberates me insofar as I *am able* to leave off loving. The person I love must leave me the freedom to be able to hate her at any moment. (49)

He's going to take a shit, and that's why he puts on his glasses. (71)

Listening to Beethoven, a woman and a man are crying faced with the greatness of that music. And I say to them: maybe it's you who have this greatness in your hearts. (75)

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is no one like Vallejo. The aphorisms add to our understanding of his monumental project.

[Erica Eller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seal of love.