Description
Book SynopsisMarcelo Morales' The World as Presence / El mundo como ser showcases, for the first time in English, a challenging, bold, and vivid new voice in Cuban literature. Morales directly interrogates both the Cuban past and present. References to many significant moments, people, and issues in Cuban history and culture can be found throughout his work.
Trade Review“Through Kristin Dykstra’s superb translation of
The World as Presence/El mundo como ser, we see Marcelo Morales’s never-ending need to articulate, to question, and to be awed by what is important to him as intellectual, as citizen, as family member, and poet. While his concerns are often political, philosophical, and global, they are at the same time intricately and inseparably bound to the body and the personal life of the poet. Morales directly interrogates (in a context that does not encourage or support directness) both the Cuban past and present, and through his work we find reference to a number of important markers of Cuban history and culture. An unforgettable presence for the unforgettable tenseness of the present.”
—Daniel Borzutzky, author of
The Book of Interfering Bodies and
The Performance of Becoming Human|“In this book, Morales achieves an impressive and deeply engaging balance, never abandoning a passionate commitment to a philosophical (perhaps phenomenological) investigation of the nature of being and presence, an affirmation of love, and ongoing attention to his family, all the while engaging Cuban political/cultural history up to the present moment.
The World as Presence/El mundo como ser is the most insightfully contemporary book of Cuban poetry that I have ever read.”
—Hank Lazer, author of
Poems Hidden in Plain View,
Brush Mind: At Hand, and
Lyric & Spirit: Selected Essays 1996–2008
