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Lluvia en el desierto / Rain in the Desert
by Marjorie Agosín
"Once again Marjorie Agosin has given the world a book of poetry that
is both awesomely beautiful and painfully disturbing. A travelogue through
the Atacama Desert, (the real desert as well as the desert of the human soul),
where Chilean mothers searched for their disappeared children during the
rein of Agosto Pinoche, this is a book to be wept over in candle lit rooms.
Presented, as always, with the Spanish original alongside the English trans-
lation, I am forced, as an English speaker, to rely on the accuracy of Celeste
Kostopolus-Cooperman's translation, but given the sheer force and depth of
the language here I can only believe that this is a just translation. Marjorie Agosín is a poet, writer, critic, and human rights activist. The descendant of European
Jews who escaped the Holocaust and settled in Chile, she was born in Bethesda, Maryland and
raised in Santiago, Chile. She has been in exile from Chile since Pinochet's dictatorship rose to
power. She obtained her Ph.D. from Indiana University in 1982 and is a Professor of Spanish at
Wellesley College. In 1990 she received the Jeanneta Rankin Award for Achievement in Human
Rights. In 1995 she was awarded the Letra D'Oro Prize and the Latina Literature Prize.
Her recent titles include Dear Anne Frank (Brandeis University Press, 1998), Tapestries of Hope, Threads
of Love: The Arpillera Movement in Chile 1974-1994 (University of New Mexico Press, 1996), Starry
Night (White Pine Press, 1996), Circles of Madness : Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (White Pine Press, 1992).
(Sherman Asher
Publishing)
Agosin's desert is a living force, a place "...where the day was a sun in
love with itself...", a place with a voice and a presence that draws people to
seek out whatever horrors or hope it has contained in its memory, because
Agosin's desert does have a memory a well as a soul. The characters of these
poems constantly visit the desert searching, sleeping and making love amid
reoccurring themes of rain and night ("She wanted to know the night when /
the silence conjured the souls of the dead."). In the desert Agosin takes us
through there is no separation between the personal and the political anymore
than there is a difference between nature and man. The poems here are
transcendent and stunning to the mind as well as the mind's eye. Agosin is
able to conjure images for the reader the way most filmmakers only dream
about and her work should be read with the deliberation you would give a
fine bottle of wine. If you are unfamiliar with Agosin and her poetry this is
a fine place to begin your acquaintance, and if you are already a fan I'm sure
I don't need to say anymore."Carlye Archibeque, Sic, Vice&Verse, Fall 1999
Read excerpts from Lluvia.
Order the book here