"Viva South America!" sets out to discover if that dream lives on. Is it fair to describe a land as 'independent' while poverty still enslaves millions, where violence lurks in the shadows and where lawlessness gnaws away at progress? Did the Liberators fail? Or are leaders such as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales resurrecting those long-ago ideals?Armed with a reporter's notebook and an open mind, the author hits the road in search of answers. With the ghost of Bolivar as guide, the quest takes the reader off the tourist trail and into the weird and wonderful worlds of South American culture and society. By stepping into people's homes and into inmates' prison cells, by climbing onto dance floors and over road blocks, Oliver Balch unearths untold stories from the front line of South America's contemporary fight for freedom.

    Lyrical and idyllic, these re-creations of Greek mythology justify Yannis Ritsos' reputation as one of the most honored in modern Greece.Plagued by tuberculosis, family misfortunes, and persecution for his Communist views, Yannis Ritsos (1909–1990) spent many years in sanatoriums, prisons, and in political exile while producing over one hundred volumes of poems, dramas, and translations.

    In Bordering Fires, the first anthology to combine writing from both sides of the Mexican-U.S. border, Cristina Garc’a presents a richly diverse cross-cultural conversation. Beginning with Mexican masters such as Alfonso Reyes and Juan Rulfo, Garc’a highlights historic voices such as “the godfather of Chicano literature” Rudolfo Anaya, and Gloria Anzaldœa, who made a powerful case for language that reflects bicultural experience. From the fierce evocations of Chicano reality in Jimmy Santiago Baca’s Poem IX to the breathtaking images of identity in Coral Bracho’s poem “Fish of Fleeting Skin,” from the work of Carlos Fuentes to Sandra Cisneros, Ana Castillo to Octavio Paz, this landmark collection of fiction, essays, and poetry offers an exhilarating new vantage point on our continent–and on the best of contemporary literature.ContentsPrelude: Excerpt from The use of thought / Samuel Ramos Early influences:Major Aranda's hand / Alfonso Reyes My cousin Agueda, and In the wet shadows / Ramón López Velarde Excerpt from Pedro Páramo / Juan Rulfo L.A. nocturne : the angels / Xavier Villaurrutia Chicano/a voices I: How to tame a wild tongue / Gloria AnzaldúaIndia / Richard RodriguezMeditations on the South Valley: Poem IX / Jimmy Santiago Baca B. Traven is alive and well in Cuernavaca / Rudolfo Anaya Contemporary Mexican voices:Excerpt from The death of Artemio Cruz / Carlos Fuentes Introduction from Here's to you, Jesusa! / Elena Poniatowska The day of the dead, and I speak of the city / Octavio Paz Excerpt from The book of lamentations / Rosario Castellanos Chicano/a voices 2: Daddy with Chesterfields in a rolled up sleeve / Ana Castillo Never marry a Mexican / Sandra Cisneros Maria de Covina / Dagoberto Gilb Excerpt from Crossing over : a Mexican family on the migrant trail / Rubén Martínez New departures:Hagiography of the apostate / Ignacio PadillaAunt Leonor, and Aunt Natalia / Ángeles MastrettaIdentity hour or, What photos would you take of the endless city / Carlos Monsiváis Fish of fleeting skin / Coral Bracho

    With affinities to Taoist and Buddhist epigrams, Voices bears witness to the awe of human existence. Revised and updated with a new introduction by translator W.S. Merwin, this bilingual volume brings back into print one of Latin America's great literary treasures.He who tells the truth says almost nothing.*I know what I have given you. I do not know what you have received.*Only a few arrive at nothing, because the way is long.*Out of a hundred years a few minutes were made that stayed with me, not a hundred years.*When I come upon some idea that is not of this world, I feel as though this world had grown wider.*This world understands nothing but words, and you have come into it with almost none.*We become aware of the void as we fill it.Antonio Porchia (1886-1968) was born in Italy. After his father died, he emigrated to Argentina with his mother and seven siblings, and as the eldest child, started working at the age of 14. He was self-taught, and his only book, Voices, caught the attention of a noted French critic who assumed him to be a scholar of Kafka and Buddhism, rather than the humble man who loved to tend his garden. Today, Porchia's aphorisms are published in more than a dozen Spanish-language editions as well as in German, French and Italian.W.S. Merwin's awards include the Pulitzer Prize, the Tanning Prize, the Bollingen Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the NEA. He is the author of dozens of books of poetry and translations. He lives in Hawaii.