Coming June 6th, 2021

The Land of Mild Light by Rafael Cadenas

Few writers have embodied the heart and soul of a nation as fully as Venezuela’s
Rafael Cadenas. Poet, translator, and educator, the ninety-year-old Cadenas
has been admired and acclaimed by Spanish-language readers for over half a
century while remaining virtually unknown to US audiences. At once painterly,
personal, and philosophical, Cadenas’ poetry conveys both the poet’s pride
in and his awareness of the struggles of his native land. His poems, probing
the relationships between reality and consciousness against the backdrop of
intense political ferment, could not be more timely. In The Land of Mild Light,
poet, editor, and broadcaster Nidia Hernandez has assembled Cadenas’ most
important poems in vivid translations by some of the English-speaking world’s
finest poets and translators, including Robert Pinsky, Forrest Gander, Sophie
Cabot Black and others. The selection includes an informative introduction by
poet, translator and long-time resident of Venezuela, Rowena Hill.

“Our poetry is vastly enlarged by voices from Latin America. The

Venezuelan poet Rafael Cadenas has always worked at the nexus
between spiritual and political life, and in this marvelous collection
he gives us ‘a song so loving it can never vanish.’ ”
— Edward Hirsch

Rafael Cadenas (Barquisimeto, 1930) is a Venezuelan poet, translator,

and educator. He formed part of the “Tabla Redonda” group in the
early sixties, when he was active in the Communist Party of Venezuela.
He was imprisoned and exiled during the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez
Jiménez, and he took refuge on the island of Trinidad until 1957.
Cadenas is the author of more than 20 volumes of poetry and prose.
He received a Guggenheim grant in 1986 and an Honoris Causa
doctorate from the Central University of Venezuela. His work has been
awarded the Premio Nacional de Ensayo in 1984, the Premio Nacional
de Literatura in 1985, the Premio San Juan de la Cruz in 1991, the
Premio Internacional de Poesía Ciudad de Granada Federico García
Lorca in 2016, and the Reina Sofia Iberoamerican poetry prize in 2018.

Available for pre-order at www.arrowsmithpress.com • Paperback • $18 • Inquiries at arrowsmithpress@gmail.com