Author: Pizarnik, Alejandra.
Publisher: Lumen
Pages:320
In the prologue to the Complete Prose of the legendary Argentine poet Alejandra Pizarnik, Ana Nuño introduces this essential volume as follows: “The significance of this edition, in terms of the ominous imperative demanded of any new release, is threefold: It offers a chronological ordering of material that was collected in bulk from Argentina and Spain; it salvages examples of the author’s literary criticism – and much more – published originally in obscure literary journals; and it allows this collection to be read as a whole, underscoring the coherence and multiple connections between, on the one hand, [Pizarnik’s] creative prose and essays, and, on the other, her prose and poetry. “Her stories feature the same recurring figures and motifs of her poems: seduction and nostalgia; the temptation of silence; writing as a ceremonial act that exalts life, death and freedom; childhood and its mirages; mirrors and ominous doppelgängers [...]. The length of these pieces is less important than their emphasis on exalting the power of language. This – not death, madness or suicide – was what drove Pizarnik’s work.”