University Press of America
Pages: 204
•
Trim: 6½ x 9⅜
978-0-7618-6456-1 • Hardback • October 2014 • $94.00 • (£72.00)
978-0-7618-6457-8 • eBook • October 2014 • $89.00 • (£68.00)
Hernan Fontanet is an Argentinian-American literary author, who has published seven books on postcolonial political poetry in Europe, the United States, and South America. He has taught Latin American literature at Yale, Buenos Aires, Rider, Almeria, Fayetteville, and Belgrano Universities. He earned his PhD in Latin American Literature and two Masters of Arts degrees, one from Spain in European studies and the other from Argentina in Hispanic studies. Fontanet has been a lecturer and keynote speaker in Europe, Japan, USA, South America, and China.
Preface by Osvaldo Bayer
Introduction
Chapter I: Childhood: The 1930s and 1940s
Chapter II: From Elegiac Introspection to Colloquial Poetry: The 1950s
Chapter III: In Search of the Right Word: The 1960s
Chapter VI: “If You Allow It, I’d Rather Go on Living”: The 1970s
Conclusions
Appendix
Bibliography
Index
What Fontanet succeeds in doing in this monograph, is to show, with detailed analysis of the texts, how Urondo’s poetry developed along a trajectory in order to fulfill this belief. In a methodical way, Fontanet takes us through the stages of Francisco Urondo’s life and poetry, all the while showing us how each one is reflected in the other.
— Sheldon Penn, director of Hispanic studies at Leicester University
Fontanet lays clear in his analyses how Urondo, in finding his own poetic voice, was also establishing an urgency to explore existential questions and, more concretely still, the identity of his then home, Buenos Aires as well as that of the nation. Urondo’s life is not without controversy.
— Sheldon Penn, director of Hispanic studies at Leicester University
Fontanet skillfully manages to show us levels of complexity without taking up an overtly ideological position on the knotted question of Peronism. I believe this stance is well judged because it gets us closer to the truly enigmatic nature of both Urondo and his poetry. By approaching Urondo via his poetry, Fontanet’s study succeeds in revealing the ambiguity at the core of a person, whose chosen path of a comprometido, armed activist, would seem to suggest, on the contrary, a single-minded certainty.
— Sheldon Penn, director of Hispanic studies at Leicester University
Scholarly and analytical, yet accessible and entertaining, Fontanet’s study is a welcome contribution to the field. It is of great value to researchers and students of Argentine and Latin American poetry but also to the general reader who wants to learn more about this important cultural and political activist and writer. For making the study so accessible, Hernán Fontanet is to be highly praised because, in so doing, he perfectly matches the spirit of Urondo’s life and work.
— Sheldon Penn, director of Hispanic studies at Leicester University
Among the strengths of Hernán Fontanet’s book are the manner in which he presents the main events in Urondo’s life, tying them simultaneously to the evolution of his poetry and to world events; his lucid analysis of the trajectory of Urondo’s poetic production; and his judicious incorporation of a wealth of sources that fill in the picture of Urondo’s life and artistic production.
— Cynthia Schmidt-Cruz, professor at the University of Delaware and director of the Latin American Studies Program
Finally, it is important to note that Professor Fontanet’s book fills a significant lacuna in the scholarship on the work of this worthy yet under-studied writer. A search in the MLA International Bibliography reveals a mere six entries on Francisco Urondo, all journal articles written between 1977 and 2009. Indeed, it was high time that a comprehensive study be done of Urondo’s poetic production, and in this sense, Fontanet’s work makes a highly significant contribution to the field of Latin American literary studies.
— Cynthia Schmidt-Cruz, professor at the University of Delaware and director of the Latin American Studies Program
Fontanet’s literary work is a complete study of all Paco’s difficult life, difficult in love and in war. Paco knew how to live and he knew how to die. He had the blood of a poet and of a hero of a people.
— Osvaldo Bayer, Argentine writer, historian, journalist and scriptwriter
As we have mentioned, in these pages written by Fontanet we find Paco’s complete legacy: his life, as a model, in giving it for his people; his poetry, a poetic exploration on thought, and the importance of his texts, his prose and his theatrical works. It is a handbook of the life of a poet and fighter. What two titles to have! In the face of a bureaucracy and political and military personalities created by our society. He was a pure being, attentive to all.
— Osvaldo Bayer, Argentine writer, historian, journalist and scriptwriter