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Como luz de río / Like River Light brings together two bilingual poetry collections by one of the most accomplished trans-border poets in America, Juan Armando Rojas Joo. Light / Luz (2013), and Vertebral River / Río vertebral (2009, 2002), masterfully translated by Jennifer Rathbun, this volume also includes a commentary by Julio Ortega.
En la poesía de Juan Armando Rojas Joo el desierto es cicatriz y también estuario. Dos voces lo nombran como espacio de frontera, santuario de la memoria y del lenguaje: la de un cronista de Indias y la de quien pertenece a ese territorio mítico y movedizo. En este canto al desierto, los poemas, traducidos por Jennifer Rathbun, navegan sobre dunas.
María Ángeles Pérez López (Poeta y profesora en la Universidad de Salamanca)
In the poetry of Juan Armando Rojas Joo, the desert is a scar and also an estuary. Two voices name it as a border space, a sanctuary of memory and language: that of a chronicler of the Indies and that of who belongs to that mythical and mobile territory. In this song to the desert, the poems, translated by Jennifer Rathbun, sail on dunes.
María Ángeles Pérez López (Poet and Professor at University of Salamanca, Spain)
La traducción de Jennifer Rathbun de la poesía de Rojas "construye un puente luminoso a través de la frontera entre EE. UU. Y México, donde no solo se desvanecen las esperanzas, sino que se tuerce la lengua ... La poesía impresionista de Juan Armando Rojas Joo es una lección de artesanía".
Ilan Stavans (Ensayista y professor en Amherst College)
Jennifer Rathbun's translation of Rojas' poetry "builds a luminous bridge across the U.S.-Mexican border, where not only hopes are dashed but the tongue is twisted… Juan Armando Rojas Joo's impressionistic poetry is a lesson in craftsmanship."
Ilan Stavans (Essayist and Professor at Amherst College)
About the author
Juan Armando Rojas Joo (Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, 1969)
Transborder poet, narrator and essayist, Rojas Joo has published seven books of poetry, a monograph about contemporary Mexican poetry, and has coedited two poetry anthologies denouncing feminicide and violence in Ciudad Juarez. Besides English Rojas has been translated to Arabic, Portuguese and Italian, he has been invited to participate in national and international literary festivals, most recently to Iraq and Colombia, and during spring of 2011 he was invited as the University of Coimbra's, Portugal, resident poet. Rojas finished his BA and MA in Latin American Literature from the University of Texas in El Paso, his Ph.D. at the University of Arizona, and was a postdoc Mellon Fellow at Amherst College, Massachusetts. Besides being a Professor of Spanish, Rojas serves as the current Chief Diversity Officer and Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion at Ohio Wesleyan University.
