Sunstone (Paper) - Softcover

Paz, Octavio; Weinberger, Eliot

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811211959 ISBN 13: 9780811211956

Publisher: New Directions, 1992

Synopsis

Presented in Eliot Weinberger's excellent new translation with the Spanish texts en face, this is the 1957 poem "that definitively established Paz as a major international figure" (Sagetrieb). Written as a single cyclical sentence (at the end of the poem the first six lines are written again), Sunstone is a tour de force of momentum. It takes as its structural basis the circular Aztec calendar, which measured the synodic period of the planet Venus (584 days the number of lines of Sunstone). But, as The New Republic noted, "this esoteric correlative design...does not circumscribe its subject. [It is] a lyrically discursive exploration of time and memory, of erotic love, or art and writing."

About this title

Review:

Weinberger has done a heroic job of bringing Paz into a lucid and quick-moving idiom.

Sunstone provides the master plot of Mr. Paz's poetry and his vision of history.

About the Author:

Octavio Paz (1914-1998) was born in Mexico City. He wrote many volumes of poetry, as well as a prolific body of remarkable works of nonfiction on subjects as varied as poetics, literary and art criticism, politics, culture, and Mexican history. He was awarded the Jerusalem Prize in 1977, the Cervantes Prize in 1981, and the Neustadt Prize in 1982. He received the German Peace Prize for his political work, and finally, the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990.

Eliot Weinberger is an essayist, editor, and translator. He lives in New York City.

About this edition

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0811211959
• ISBN 13: 9780811211956
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 60