November 30, 2007
Juan Gelman wins 'Spanish Nobel'
Argentine poet Juan Gelman on Thursday receieved the Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world's top literary award.
Gelman, who turned 77 this year, has published more than 20 books. According to the Associated Press article about the award, his poetry explores “his Jewish heritage, family, Argentina and his painful experience as a political activist during his country's 1976-83 'dirty war' against leftist dissent, an ordeal that led to his fleeing Argentina for Europe.”
The 'dirty war' was indeed painful for Gelman: his son and pregnant daughter-in-law were kidnapped from their home and executed in 1976. The two were among the approximately 30,000 'disappeared' people who vanished during the Argentine military's campaign of leftist repression. Incidentally, this grim episode of Argentina's history serves as the backdrop of Nathan Englander's recent novel, “The Ministry of Special Cases
Gelman's work has been recognized before. He won the Argentine National Poetry Prize in 1997 and he received the Juan Rulfo Award in 2000. An English translation of some of his best work, “Unthinkable Tenderness: Selected Poems
I've not read much of Gelman but from what I've seen in the introduction to “Unthinkable Tenderness,” he has explored the notion of exile by “adapting” and translating other poetry from the “very old Jewish diaspora.” Given the life he's led and his family history (he's the third son of Russian-Jewish immigrants to Argentina), I can only imagine that exile is a deep subject for this poet.
Here is a taste of Gelman's poetry, taken from “Unthinkable Tenderness”:
“CONFIDENCES”
he sits down at the table and writes
“with this poem you won’t take power” he says
“with these verses you won’t make the Revolution” he says
“nor with thousands of verses will you make the Revolution” he says
what’s more: those verses won’t make
peons teachers woodcutters live better
eat better or him himself eat live better
nor will they make a girl fall in love with him
they won’t earn him money
they won’t get him into movies free
he can’t buy clothes with them
or trade them for wine or tobacco
no scarves no parrots no boats
no bulls no umbrellas can he get for them
they will not keep him dry in the rain
nor get him grace or forgiveness
“with this poem you won’t take power” he says
“with these verses you won’t make the Revolution” he says
“nor with thousands of verses will you make the Revolution” he says
he sits down at the table and writes
For those of you who speak Spanish, you can check out Juan Gelman's blog at www.juangelman.com/wordpress/.