The Ghetto

Poetry. Latinx Studies. Jewish Studies. Translated from the Spanish by Seth Michelson. "The poems in Tamara Kamenszain's book THE GHETTO breathe and live boldly and beautifully in Seth Michelson's spot-on translations. Written in Spanish, with the ghosts of Hebrew and Yiddish never far in the background, these poems cast a discerning eye toward the meaning of words such as 'ghetto,' 'exile,' and 'ancestors' in a world of borders, edges, and death. Yet, as in the poetry of Paul Celan,...
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Poetry. Latinx Studies. Jewish Studies. Translated from the Spanish by Seth Michelson. "The poems in Tamara Kamenszain's book THE GHETTO breathe and live boldly and beautifully in Seth Michelson's spot-on translations. Written in Spanish, with the ghosts of Hebrew and Yiddish never far in the background, these poems cast a discerning eye toward the meaning of words such as 'ghetto,' 'exile,' and 'ancestors' in a world of borders, edges, and death. Yet, as in the poetry of Paul Celan, one of the guiding spirits of this book, what is beautiful is never fully abandoned. 'Today in the crowns of the trees all my roots flower,' she writes in the poem 'Tree of Life,' offering vision and salvation from within the landscape of a Jewish cemetery in Buenos Aires. Thanks to Seth Michelson, this book is now a marvelous and significant contribution to English language as well as Argentinean verse."--Gail Wronsky