Eugenio Montejo (Caracas, 1938 - Valencia, Venezuela, 2008) was a poet, essayist, editor, and diplomat; his verse collections include: Élegos (1967); Muerte y Memoria (1972); Algunas Palabras (1976); Terredad (1978); Trópico Absoluto (1982); Alfabeto del Mundo (1986); Adiós al siglo XX (1992); Partitura de la cigarra (1999); Papiros amorosos (2002) y Fábula del escriba (2006). The majority of his essayistic work is collected in two volumes: La ventana oblicua (1974) and El taller blanco (1983). He also published many books under alternative names: El cuaderno de Blas Coll (1981); Guitarra del horizonte (by Sergio Sandoval, 1991); El hacha de seda (by Tomás Linden; 1995); Chamario (by Eduardo Polo, 2004), and La caza del relámpago (by Lino Cervantes, 2006). Among other honors, we was awarded the National Literature Prize in 1998 and the Octavio Paz International Prize for Poetry and Essay in 2004. An important volume of critical writing has been published on his work, which boasts a significant number of re-editions, extensions, and anthological volumes in several countries and in various languages.
Before Eloísa, I was lonely and insecure, and at the start of our relationship it was hard for me to accept the men in her life. Now, I understand how…
“Every language act,” wrote George Steiner, “has a temporal determinant.” I find this sentence underlined by my hand fifteen or twenty years ago in After Babel.
…I have a good memory of the first time I came face to face with a story by the Argentine writer Samanta Schweblin (Buenos Aires, 1978). It was in the…
