Selected Translations

For twenty years, Ilan Stavans has been translating poetry from Spanish, Yiddish, Hebrew, French, Portuguese, Russian, German, Georgian, and other languages. His versions of Borges, Neruda, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Ferreira Gullar, Raúl Zurita, and dozens of others have become classics. This volume, which includes poems from more than forty poets from all over the world, is testimony to a life dedicated to the pursuit of beauty through poetry in different languages.

“Lightning from the Stable” by Elizabeth Schön (Venezuela, 1921–2007)

You don’t choose
the abyss, the chaos, the nothingness
They reach you
in water running slowly
for you not to be surprised
by the absence of matter around you
near the light of the soul calling
the wing’s passing flap of the earth you live in.