Desolation
SynopsisPlot
For the first time, it allows English readers to appreciate the integrity and expressive power of this foundational book in the life and works of Gabriela Mistral. The translation is based on the most reliable and accurate text in Spanish, the 1923 edition of Nascimento, which will be of interest and importance both to a Spanish-speaking public as well as to specialists in the field.
Story
About this book
Desolación, first published in 1922, is the debut poetry collection by Chilean writer Gabriela Mistral. The poems move through themes of love, grief, nature, childhood, and the landscapes of rural Chile, particularly the arid valleys and mountains where Mistral grew up and worked as a teacher. The collection established her as a distinctive voice in Latin American literature and helped shape her path toward becoming the first Latin American author awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, which she received in 1945.
This bilingual edition presents the poems in both Spanish and English, making it the first full English translation of the collection. The text is based on the 1923 Nascimento edition, published in Santiago, which is considered the most reliable Spanish version of the book. That edition appeared one year after the original New York printing and reflected Mistral's own revisions.
Mistral spent much of her life outside Chile, serving as a diplomat and educator in Europe and the Americas. Desolación, rooted in the stark terrain and emotional life of her early years, remains the foundation of her broader body of work and a starting point for understanding her later poetry and prose.
