The Child Poet

(Paperback)

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This work, narrated in a succession of interconnected vignettes, provides a portrait of Homero Aridjis in his pre-poet years. A child at a time when sights and sensations were still delivered at their purest, when each day brought new perceptions of his mother and his father, when every villager in Contepec formed part of a personal mythology. It was a time when shadows were palpable and light had a sound of its own. Imminent fatherhood helped revive memories that had, for two decades, lain dormant.

Reviews

"Proust meets magical realism in this searching, lyrical memoir . . . In this soft-spoken account, [an] accident transforms Aridjis from boisterous lad to a bookish solitary who turns to poetry. It would not be a modernist Latin American literary work without at least a moment reminiscent of Garca Mrquez, and there are many here, as when a suitor rejected by his aunt takes up the habit of sitting in the town square holding a protective umbrella, 'though the sky was clear' . . . A fine introduction to a writer who deserves to be better known to English-language readers."
Kirkus Reviews

"The Child Poet recounts in prose a series of dreams that the poet experienced during his wifes pregnancy with his first daughter . . . There is a beautiful symbolism in this books being translated by Aridjiss daughter . . . Aridjiss imagery is childlike in the best possible sense. It reflects the wonder of seeing things for the first time, the wonderment of dawning awareness, before ending with a sudden, declarative terseness that announces his arrival as a poet."
The Poetry Review

"This is writing that by the force of authenticity ultimately matters."
Cleaver Magazine

"Glorious."
Eileen Battersby, Irish Times (Best Books of 2016)

"Homero Aridjisbelieves his own poets life began after a gun injury in childhood. The injury created the poet yet he is proposing too that childhood is poetry, an accumulative first encounter with the stuff that the rest of the life will be working through.The writing here is awesomely beautifulrich, kinetic and even macabre . . . Im aware throughout that this quick and lucid feeling translation is the product ofChloe Aridjis, the poets daughter. To be medium to the matter-of-fact privilege of a male child coming into his own in a mans world, particularly when that child is your future illustrious dad brings a fantastic and even trans glow to this baroque and embodied tale of youth understanding in hindsight his future powers."
Eileen Myles, author

"Homero Aridjis's poems open a door into the light."
Seamus Heaney

Author Bio

One of Latin America's foremost literary figures, Homero Aridjis was born in Contepec, Michoacan, Mexico. Many of his forty-five books of poetry and prose have been translated into fifteen languages, and his writing has been recognized with important literary prizes. Formerly Mexican Ambassador to Switzerland, The Netherlands, and UNESCO, during six years he was international president of PEN International and is now president emeritus. As founder (in 1985) and president of the Group of 100, an environmentalist association of writers, artists, and scientists, he has received awards from the United Nations, the Orion Society, Mikhail Gorbachev and Global Green USA and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Tiempo de angeles/A Time of Angels, Eyes to See Otherwise, Solar Poems, and 1492 The Life and Times of Juan Cabezon of Castile are among his books available in English. About the Translator- Chloe Aridjis was born in New York and grew up in the Netherlands and Mexico City. After receiving a BA from Harvard, she went on to receive a PhD in nineteenth-century French poetry and magic shows at Oxford. Her 2009 novel Book of Clouds (Grove) was published in eight countries, and won the French Prix du Premier Roman Etranger.