Product Description
Spanish language. From back cover:"Equilibrado en lo politico y en lo social, Marti fue hombre de centro. A su pensamiento, liberal y humanista en el sentido mas amplio y etimologico de esos terminos, no se le pueden pegar otras etiquetas. Fue liberal porque creyo en la democracia pluripartidista y los derechos humanos, y de manera general, en la libre empresa y el libre comercio, y humanista porque se supo carne y espiritu, dotado como todos los hombres de conciencia y razon, y heredero de mucho saber, belleza y fragilidad. Esta seleccion de cronicas, cartas y discursos agrupados en cinco partes -- Educacion, Concordia y convivencia, Derechos y deberes, Elecciones, y Justicia y libertad -- nos muestra un Marti cubano y universal, maante de la libertad y la virtud ye enamorado de su patria-pueblo. Con todos y para el bien de todos prueba que su palabra puede aun servir de guia y esperanza en el siglo que recien comienza." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A Highly Skilled Performance
Real skill, as everyone knows, consists in making it look easy. There is a quality of perfect inevitability about Anne Fountain's versions of José Martí's "Versos Sencillos" that makes it hard to imagine these poems could be translated any other way. And that is the hallmark of excellent work. The perfect, singing simplicity of Martí's Spanish is beautifully, singingly rendered into English, and the poems, originally composed in the Catskills, thus come full circle.

Versos Sencillos by Jose Marti - A Translation
Amazon has incorrectly placed the review I made of VERSOS SENCILLOS by JOSE MARTI: A TRANSLATION (Hardcover)by DR. ANNE FOUNTAIN under the book review for another book Versos Sencillos by Jose Marti (Diferencias)- which does not have an English translation side by side. My review is for the excellent side by side spanish and English translation done by Dr. Anne Fountain in VERSOS SENCILLOS by JOSE MARTI: A TRANSLATION by DR. ANNE FOUNTAIN.

FOR VERSOS SENCILLOS by JOSE MARTI: A TRANSLATION by DR. ANNE FOUNTAIN: .Capturing the essence and rhythm of poetry in a translation is especially challenging.Thus it's a special joy for those who appreciate Jose Marti to read both the Spanish and English versions of his poetry side by side.Anne Fountain's translation of Jose Marti's "Versos Sencillos" is a masterful work, and those who read both Spanish and English will certainly appreciate the extrordinary job she has done in imbuing the English translations with the sense and cadence of Jose Marti's original works.

An excellent translation of Marti's work
It is unfortunate that this translation of Versos Sencillos (translated by Dr. Anne Fountain) is not more widely available.I believe this is the best English version of these poems yet, and would recommend it to any who admire or have an interest in Marti but do not have the command of Spanish necessary to read the poems untranslated.The rhythm and rhyme of the original are well preserved here along with the meaning.

Super translations!
This book translates a major body of José Martí's poems, known collectively as Versos Sencillos. The translator, Dr. Anne Fountain, provides both the original Spanish and her superb English version. She miraculously perserves both meter and rhyme in the translation. A fine introduction places the poet and his work in the late 19th century, suggesting why Martí is one of the most beloved writers of Spanish America.
An institute on Martí that I'm conducting this summer is adopting this as a major text. ... Read more

Product Description
Venerated as the creator of Cuba’s first republic, declared by Fidel Castro to be the "intellectual author" of the second revolution, revered by Cuban exiles as the premier visionary of the democratic Cuban state, Jose Marti (1853-95) was a prolific and eclectic writer and a practical philosopher. In Jose Marti: Mentor of the Cuban Nation, John M. Kirk leads us to a better understanding of "the purest man" of the Latin race and one of the most underrated political thinkers of modern times.

As a scholarly statement, Kirk’s work contributes to a necessary reappraisal of Marti; it is a quest after the true esencia martiana—the essence of Marti’s sociopolitical thought. Kirk deliberately departs from a strictly theoretical viewpoint in his well-documented synthesis of Marti’s theories. The result is partially an explanation for the Cuban leader’s continued exaltation as the "apostle" of modern political movements of both the right and the left.

Kirk reviews the formative experiences of Marti’s youth through his letters and early literary endeavors to his deportation to Spain before the age of eighteen. Marti’s observations from his travels on the realities of North American democracy and the struggles of Latin American nations to emerge from colonialism are used by Kirk to trace Marti’s sociopolitical development, culminating in his aspirations for Cuba following its independence from Spain.

Kirk clarifies Marti’s visionary but quite specific designs for the moral foundation, social, political, and economic structures and policies of the liberated republic—concepts that Marti would have attempted to implement had he not been killed by Spanish forces. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Things I never knew
Many people know about Jose Marti and his poetry as sung in Guantanamera. This books tells about another Marti--one who read and admired American authors such as Emerson and Whitman. Who would have guessed that a Cuban exile of the nineteenth century understood American literature so well? ... Read more

Product Description
A biography of the Cuban patriot, author, and journalist, who dedicated his life to Cuba's struggle for independence from Spain. ... Read more