An illuminating new collection from the latest winner of the Paz Prize for Poetry, selected by Germán Guerra and granted by the National Poetry Series; published in both English and Spanish
MARÍA AUXILIADORA ÁLVAREZ’S winning entry of the Paz Prize for Poetry is in many ways a loving memoriam to her father, Oswaldo Álvarez Rojas, and a celebration of the long embrace that still warms María, her seven siblings, and their mother. Her poems explore sunlight as a metaphor for her father, holding her up from behind, illuminating her path forward, and also shining a light on memory, igniting nostalgia, and overcoming the grief of loss.
Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, “Believe me, everything depends on this: to have had, once in your life, a sacred spring that fills the heart with so much light that it is enough to transfigure all coming days.” In A Sun Behind Us, the poet’s father is the sacred spring. “My father, ” writes Álvarez, “is in all my writing, and his writing is in all my family, keeping us standing tall even after his sudden departure, following a brief illness. His positive influence is still the sun behind our back, projected beyond our horizon. The potent lighthouse in our life as nomads. Illuminated by the same ray of light, the eight children together form a compact stained-glass window, now dividing the fifty-two weeks of the year among ourselves, each taking our turn in caring for our mother beside the Florida sea, where she still smiles each morning. Even those who live far away travel without hesitation to fulfill a promise whispered along with our father’s last breath.”
Álvarez’s book was selected for the Paz Prize for Poetry by the Cuban poet Germán Guerra.
Sobre el autor
MARÍA AUXILIADORA ÁLVAREZ was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1956 and has been a professor emerita at Miami University, Ohio, since 2023. Growing up in different countries due to her father’s diplomatic career, she settled in the United States in 1996, where she received a master’s degree and doctorate in Spanish literature from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research areas include mystical/contemporary poetry; pre-Columbian/colonial cultures; and women, cultural, and interdisciplinary studies. She has published several critical articles in literary journals, two essay collections, and fourteen volumes of poetry.
Más ebooks del mismo autor / Editor
113.082 Ebooks en esta categoría
