Legna Rodriguez Iglesias has quickly become one of the most celebrated Cuban poets writing today. Her intense - often confrontational - poetry refuses to conform, subverting expectations and challenging social mores. Particularly arresting is her uncomfortable focus on the human body, which she dramatises in isolation, stripping it of context, making it strange and even obscene. Alongside poems of extreme descriptive vigour, Rodriguez Iglesias irreverently skewers the hypocrisies, cliches and hierarchies of our time. This selection offers a broad survey of Rodriguez Iglesias's work, drawing on eight previous collections in Spanish. Throughout, the poems are inflected with Cuban history and explore the tensions between the generation of the Revolution and her own. The consequences of poet's long-term residence in Miami are forcefully brought home through poems of emigration and estrangement. The playfulness and verbal dexterity that marks Rodriguez Iglesias's work in Spanish has been expertly brought to life in English by Abigail Parry, an award-winning poet whose debut collection Jinx was published by Bloodaxe in 2018, working in collaboration with bridge-translator and writer Serafina Vick.

About the Author
Legna Rodriguez Iglesias was born in Camaguey, Cuba in 1984, and now lives in Miami. She works in a variety of genres, including poetry, short stories, novels, children's books and theatre. She won the 2011 Premio Iberoamericano de Cuentos Julio Cortazar and the 2016 Premio Literario Casa de Las Americas, in theatre. Her poetry titles include Hilo + Hilo, Dame Spray, Transtuce, Chicle (ahora es cuando) and the dual language collection, Miami Century Fox (Akashic Books, US, 2017), winner of the 2016 National Poetry Series Paz Prize for Poetry. Her other titles include the novels Las analfabetas, Mayonesa bien brillante, and Mi novia preferida fue un bulldog frances, as well as the short story collection No sabe/no contesta. A dual language Spanish-English selection of her poems, Un cuerpecito son muchas partes / A little body are many parts, translated by Abigail Parry and Serafina Vick, was published in 2019 by Bloodaxe Books and the Poetry Translation Centre.

Reviews
The Poetry Translation Centre gives the best contemporary poems from Africa, Asia and Latin America a new life in the English language, working with diaspora communities for whom poetry is of great importance. By fostering creative collaborations between poets and translators, the PTC produces high-quality translations that extend the audience for international poetry.



Book Information
ISBN 9781780374963
Author Legna Rodriguez Iglesias
Format Paperback
Page Count 192
Imprint Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Publisher Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 138mm * 15mm