Blood of the Sun - by Salgado Maranhão (Paperback)

About the Book

In poems brilliantly textured and layered, Salgado Maranhao integrates socio-political thought with subjects abstractly metaphysical. Concrete collides with conceptual--butcher shops, sex, and machine guns in conversation with language, absence, and time--resulting in a collection varied as well as unified, an aesthetic at once traditional and postmodern. Writing in forms both fixed and free, Maranhao's language suggests a jazz-like musicality that rings true in Alexis Levitin's masterful translations. For readers who enjoy the complexity of Charles Simic, or the stylistically innovative syntax of Cesar Vallejo, Maranhao's "Blood of the Sun "is a sensually provocative amalgamation of both.

Book Synopsis

In Blood of the Sun, Salgado Maranhão--one of the most celebrated poets in Brazil today--weds the powerfully socio-political to the metaphysical.

Masterfully translated by Alexis Levitin and presented in both Portuguese and English, this collection plunges into the concrete and the conceptual. Butcher shops, sex, and machine guns sit in spirited dialogue with language, absence, and time. Cannibalism offers an opportunity to reflect on random killings and the plight of modern man. The resulting poems are varied as well as unified, brilliantly textured and layered. Maranhão's language sings in forms fixed and free, filled with a jazzlike musicality and fluted rhymes. "In paining me my pain makes me a dean," one poem reads. "Whose vice is claiming virtue as his own. / Am I saint or devil, or in between? / Am I a killer who is yet unknown?"

Sensually provocative, defined by an aesthetic at once traditional and postmodern, Blood of the Sun introduces a thrilling new voice to the English language.

From the Back Cover

Pairing one of the most celebrated poets in Brazil today with the premier American translator of Portuguese-language literature, Blood of the Sun offers a richly multicultural and highly musical experience.

Praise for Blood of the Sun

"Brazil's northeast is a dry and ancient land. Little visited, it has come to be known outside the country for producing some of its best writing. In Blood of the Sun, Alexis Levitin has given us a perfect English rendering of Salgado Maranhão's deft expression of the tonality of this people and land."
--Gregory Rabassa

"Alexis Levitin's translation of the Afro-Brazilian poet Salgado Maranhão's Blood of the Sun succeeds in negotiating the quirky experimental richness of Maranhão's Pre-Columbian, Amazonian, and Yoruba influences with his traditional rhymed lyrics and jazzlike syncopations. We journey to Brazil's agricultural northeast and out of the expected ballyhoo of Carnival into 'the desolate shelter?/?of the flat?/?lands' and 'beneath the gaze of exhausted time.' We see 'the ritual jewels of Lilian Reyes O.?/?reign in the entrails?/?of vibrant trance.' Levitin skillfully alerts us to the presence of a complex and offbeat poet whose work merits a wide audience."
--Colette Inez

Review Quotes

Brazil's northeast is a dry and ancient land. Little visited, it has come to be known outside the country for producing some of its best writing. In Blood of the Sun , Alexis Levitin has given us a perfect English rendering of Salgado Maranhão's deft expression of the tonality of this people and land.
--Gregory Rabassa

Alexis Levitin's translation of the Afro-Brazilian poet Salgado Maranhão's Blood of the Sun succeeds in negotiating the quirky experimental richness of Maranhão's Pre-Columbian, Amazonian, and Yoruba influences with his traditional rhymed lyrics and jazz-like syncopations. We journey to Brazil's agricultural northeast and out of the expected ballyhoo of Carnival into 'the desolate shelter/ of the flat/ land' and 'beneath the gaze of exhausted time.' We see 'the ritual jewels of Lilian Reyes O/ reign in the entrails/ of vibrant trance.' Levitin skillfully alerts us to the presence of a complex and offbeat poet whose work merits a wide audience.
--Colette Inez

The publication of Blood of the Sun [Sol sanguíneo] is the felicitous outcome of a spectacular collaboration between one of the most influential and innovative contemporary Brazilian poets and one of the most accomplished English language translators from the Portuguese.
--Luiz Fernando Valente, Professor of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies and Comparative Literature, Brown University, from the Introduction

About the Author

Salgado Maranhão won Brazil's prestigious Prêmio Jabuti in 1999 for his book Mural of the Winds. In addition to nine books of poetry, including The Snake's Fists, The Kiss of the Beast, Tiger's Fur, and the very recent (2010) Collected Poetry, he has written song lyrics and made recordings with some of Brazil's leading jazz and pop musicians. Alexis Levitin's translations of Maranhão's poems have previously appeared in BOMB, Brasil/Brazil, Dirty Goat, Fourth River, Measure, Osiris, Per Contra, Pleiades, Sirena, Spoon River Poetry Review, Subtropics, Turnrow, Words Without Borders, and Xavier Review.

Alexis Levitin has published more than twenty-five books of translation, including eleven collections of poems by Portuguese poet Eugénio de Andrade. His translations have appeared in more than numerous anthologies and hundreds of literary journals including Grand Street, Partisan Review, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, and Prairie Schooner. He has received four grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, two Fulbright Awards, and a number of other prestigious awards and residencies. Levitin teaches in the English program at the State University of New York, Plattsburgh.