"Trilce", originally published in Spanish in 1922, was the last collection of poetry to be published in Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo's lifetime. He identified himself with Peruvian landscape and experience, and attempts throughout this book to elude European forms and return to the Inca culture and language. The translator of this bilingual edition is herself a New Mexican poet whose style is uniquely suited to the hazards of translation.

Author Biography

Cesar Vallejo was born in 1892 in Santiago de Chuco, a small village of the Peruvian sierra. He was imprisoned as "the intellectual instigator" of a local conflict that occurred during a chance visit he made to his family. He was eventually released after a group of writers and scholars protested his incarceration. He published Trilce, and, shortly thereafter, disappointed by the book's reception left for Paris. He spent the rest of his life in Paris and did not publish any more poetry during his lifetime. He continued to publish essays, political pieces, a play, and short stories. He also became a Marxist and was very involved in the Spanish Civil War. He died in 1938 on Good Friday. Rebecca Seiferle is the author of The Ripped-Out Seam which won the Bogin Award from the Poetry Society of America, the Writers' Exchange Award, and was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize. She is currently an instructor at San Juan Community College.